Why oriental simplistic styles can successfully in MUJI shop products - Essay Example

?Why oriental s Muji College Introduction In recent years, an oriental unsophisticated fashion design style has spread world-wide. One Japanese fashion design called Muji, has successfully established its unique brand identity with its famous simplistic style. Based to a great extent on the noble concept of “simple, natural and fundamental”, all their products are designed by using this core theory. Another fundamental consideration is the term “plainness”, which is a cultural aesthetic idea that already exists in Japanese daily life for centuries. Through the establishment of Muji brand image, this Japanese unsophisticated oriental aesthetics has a chance to thrive. A research has been done so as to find more about Muji’s style and its product design in the quest of exploring the significance of its overall brand image. From the cultural point of view, this research also explored the oriental simplistic style of Muji, and its correlation to Japanese culture, as well as the connotation hidden behind this unique style. Another endeavor of this research was to find the essential elements of its oriental plainness and to make available an applicable method for design adaptation, which can be used as a reference for future design implementations on oriental unsophisticated Muji style. A practical design was put into practice after the results of the research and its feasibility was verified. According to the analyzed results, the perceptive degree of the oriental basic factors of the practical design was comparable to that of the studied samples of Muji which meant that the theoretical results and the actual practices had a significant degree of achievability. Aim In recent years, this oriental simplicity style has spread out with design fashion. For instance the Japanese brand "Muji" which is known for its modest style with the unique identity that emphasizes "minimalistic, natural, and basic ", is a concept that has become the core of all product designs; by taking "nativity" as the basis of its ideology in the aesthetics of life and culture that has triumphed since the ancient times of Japan. The establishment of brand image promotes the Japanese oriental modest aesthetic concept and Muji carries the exact keynote of "nativity" forward and starts to carry out cultural exchange with the rest of the world. It is expected that this study, though the research of the design and style of Muji, investigates the brand's overall image and related brand definition, by progressing from the cultural aspect to discussing the oriental inconspicuous style under the Japanese culture its cultural connotations behind the brand. The early stage of the study will be devoted to the collection of literature associated to the brand image, which includes the brand’s definition, and the brand image of Muji, after which the study will move to the business concept, development principles, and the product characteristics. Based on this knowledge of the brand-related theories and the initial concept of image definition, the study moves from the perception of "minimalistic, natural, and basic" of Muji to investigate the modest design style and the nuance in the Japanese culture in an effort to trace the cultural distinction and vein behind the Japanese design. Objectives Through the enterprise of brand image, this Japanese unconventional oriental aesthetics then has a chance to advance. This research studied Muji’s style and product design in the quest of exploring the significance of its overall brand image. From the cultural point of view, this research also examined the oriental unconventional style of Muji, a brand filled with Japanese culture, and the conception hidden in this style. Another endeavor of this research was to get the indispensable elements of oriental simplicity and to make available an applicable method for design adaptation, which could be used as a reference for future design executions on oriental unsophisticated style. A practical design was implemented and the feasibility was verified. The results showed that the perceptive degree of the oriental basic factors of the practical design was comparable to that of the examined samples of Muji proved that the theoretical results and the actual practices had a significant degree of achievability. Literature review This part presents the relevant theories on brands, chiefly for brand and image definition. Brand is a trademark used to differentiate goods and services which are provided by different manufacturers. The American Marketing Association defines brand as referring to a name, term, sign, symbol or design. Brands are used to identify different suppliers and to distinguish itself from the goods or services of other businesses according to American Marketing Association Committee on Terms, 1960. This definition is an important factor in brand creation as a name, pattern symbol, design or property that makes possible for the product to have a unique identification which distinguishes it from other brands. Aaker (1997) supposes that the significance includes the association of the enterprise, the value of self-expression, the value of emotional attachment, the origin, the user's image, brand personality and product. Put another way, the product is contained in the brand. Levitt (1983) points out the significance of the brand includes, Basic brand: and Tangible product and Augmented brand: product as well as Potential brand. Brand is a symbol that consumers identify about the manufacturer of the product and their impression makes the ordinary consumer whether to trust the product or not, since the brand gives customers the guarantee of cognitive satisfaction in certain degree and this increases purchasing efficiency (Aaker & Biel, 1995). Schultz and Barnes (1999) aver that brand does not only give the consumers the feeling of ownership, but it also make the market have more significance to consumers since brand is not just a name or logo, but also a relationship with consumers. de Chernatony and McWilliam (1989) argues that a brand is a tool that assists the consumers to make fair purchasing decisions, and they explain the meaning and function of brand from four angles for both the product and consumers. Brand is an identification of the organization that shows the differences of their brands from those of the other competitors. Brand is the commitment and assurance of quality, the tool that ensures consistent quality and provides added value so that consumers of a product, before the purchase then use, and feel that the quality which adds value of the products. Brand is the tool that projects the self-image and is a symbol that differentiates itself from other similar products. Consequently, brand is a logo which enables the consumers the difference between the products and also to tell them apart. Brand is a collection of information relative to the product, the assurance of quality and uniformity, and the functional attributes, in that it aids the consumers to make purchasing decision, by just looking at the logo or the name of the product before making a purchase. Keller (1993) defines brand image as the awareness that facilitates the consumers to match he product information with the brand they perceive in their memories. Davis (2000) considers that the brand image presents how the customers looks at the products, subjects it to several determinants, such as product appearance, properties, functions, and the role of products in the consumers’ life, which somehow represents ones personality. Kotler (1997) argues that brand image is the collection of the faith held by consumers for a particular brand, as the brand image may look different in the eyes of consumers due to personal experience, selective perception, selective distortion, and selective memory, notwithstanding which brand image is used for the products and services provided by different sellers and competitors. Brand image is an essential factor for brand equity (Biel, 1992), the outer clue by which the consumers evaluate the product’s quality (Richardson, Dick, & Jain, 1994). Brand image makes an undeviating difference in the sales and regulatory variation in the relationship between the product’s life strategy ( PLC) and sales.(Park, Jaworski, & MacInnis, 1986). In the Strategic Brand Image Management, Park, Jaworski, and Machinnis (1986) defines brand image as the brand preferred by enterprises based on the consumers demands. They assert that brand image is the original driving force which makes the consumers to buy some products and it can be divided into functional, social and perceptive forms to deal with the relationship between the brand concept and image, but as depending on different strategies and the management focus in assorted stages. The beginning stage offers a series of designs to build up the brand image /position in the marketing activities at the time of launch. The elaboration stage is the focal point to the increase of the brand value for creating or maintaining the competitive advantage where the fortification stage aims to cover other products of the enterprise with the brand image, Reynolds and Gutman (1988) uses the means-end chain method to define the brand image to achieve a linkage of product attributes > results >personal value, where the product attributes are the characteristics of products or services, including tangible, measurable, abstract and subjective characteristics. The results are the benefits the consumers get from the use of products, as well as the external instrumental value, which refers to outsiders’ perception of the consumers, and the intrinsic terminal value, of how the consumers look at themselves. Bernstein (2003) in addition proposes that, for the purpose of the value of brand image, the following three conditions are significant in the commencement of the planning and design. Physique: which is the composition of and application of product; Character: which is the psychological impression of brand characteristics; Style or the continual role of brand during communication. If the physique, style and character expressions can promote the brand value, then it certainly will be useful to the enterprise and consequently enhance the value the enterprise. Aaker and Biel (1995) also accepts as true that the brand image is the assigned a brand style and integral brand reputation that comprises of three associated images: The image established by products or services, also known as corporate image; The image of the product or service itself; The image of user. Muji brand image Seiyu GK created its own brand Muji in 1980 and in 1983 it launched its first flagship store in original place of fashion in the township of Aoyama, Tokyo. After the brand became familiar to consumers, in 1990, the section accountable for this brand became independent from Seiyu GK and officially set up in the name of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. Currently, the company is 23 years old and has an annual turnover of over JPT 115.1 billion with more than 2,890 employees. By November 25, 2006, there were 315 stores in Japan alone. Apart from Japan, Muji has opened up its branches in United Kingdom, France, Hong Kong and 63 overseas stores. Taiwan is its 7th overseas market following the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea. Muji has a currently total number of 378 stores around the world. “Muji” is the abbreviation of “Mujirushi Ryohin”, which means “excellent goods without logo”. In Chinese, it is called “????”. “??” which translates as “the products are not limited by the brand attributes” and “??” which means “the commitment made by the enterprise to make quality goods. “ In the Muji preamble, the brand and product features are classified into three parts; Simple design which emphasizes minimalist style; Design which blends in daily life; Brand which doesn’t depend on the designs made by famous designers. At the same time, the following three principles are fundamental to Muji development:- I. Strict material selection: According to Muji principle, any material which fails to be decomposed and affects the environment is of no use. II. Production process: Muji carefully examines the manufacturing process for each product and cuts the excessive procedures which have nothing to do with the commodity’s intrinsic nature as it cuts the production cost. As long as the product’s own quality can be is identified, its quality will not be affected due to the use of the remaining materials. III. Simple package: Muji advocates that its product’s color and shape other than unnecessary decorations are of most significance and that the best package which is suitable for the product is the one that does not embellish the product. According to “The Most Influential 100 Brands in the World” issued by the World Brand Lab (WBL), Muji ranks at number 53rd, just one rank before the fashion icons Gucci and Hermes. Life concept and life style are the selling points of Muji products. Haig (2004) believes that the following four are essential to Muji success: Fashion sense: Muji fashion originates from its product feature; Simplicity: As fashion journalist Stephen Bayley mentioned in “The Times”, although Muji products are ordinary, it has good quality; Popular price: The less investment in advertisement allows Muji to lower the sales cost which ensures the uniformity of brand recognition: in marketing, despite the fact that Muji develops towards anti-brand, it grasps the key principle advocated by many famous brands – the uniformity of brand recognition. Product design: From product design and package and store layout to brown paper bag printed with Muji label, people will easily recognize the brand of Muji. Minimalism and the Science of Zen Minimalism originated from the early 20th century and the theory advocates for objective and simple formation and impersonal simplicity by emphasizing that a product shall be displayed in a pure, logical and simple way as an alternative of expressing the subjective emotion of the artist. Simplifying an image into a phenomenon or a concept is the purpose of minimalism and renowned minimalism artist Stella is remembered to have said, “What you see is what you see” (Meyer, 2000). The Science of Zen originated in India and after being established in China, it got incorporated with the Chinese traditional thoughts of Laozi and Chuangzi, Taoism and Confucianism, before slowly but surely getting developed into the Buddhist school with Chinese characteristics the teachings had enormous influences to Chinese cultural sectors. Minimalist factors affecting product design Based on this investigation the introduction of Muji’s Japanese minimalism esthetics and factors influences the product design in the following way: The application and expression of colors, gives a pure hue without color or sense, just by following the concept of empty image and pure simplicity. In the real application of colors on products, simple colors such as white, grey, black and silver are basic colors are used. As for the structural design of products, most are based on the logic and regular arrangement of program and formulation, which takes on the feeling of uniform simplicity. In the meantime, under the influence of traditional distant module aesthetics, in structural design, the designer adopts the stacking and blocking to illustrate the aesthetic sense of regular distance and improve the expandability of product’s functions. In the visual sense, the objects will bring forth the feeling of existence, non-existence, void and solid as well as blank and comparison, and give one an idea about a philosophical contemplation of “None but All”. In addition, to the features of the compared formation between Yin and Yang, existence and non-existence, void and solid, all demonstrate the sound feeling of co-existence without conflicts. This is a condition with color and solid integrated which removes the opposition and reaches a sense of nature and harmony. In the application of modeling, it emphasizes the rationality, straight line, geometry and comparison, and some have modeling of curve and arc, aiming to reveal the image of pure and few, which ensues in producing the pure and unblemished experience and feeling. In the application of materials, it focuses on the self transparency of materials, and shows the texture of materials, which the designer adopts natural and recoverable materials with the appearance not coated or processed, which will bring out “Shibu”, or the mental experience of modesty and calmness. Methodology In the formal questionnaire, use the five factors influencing the design of simplicity discussed in this chapter as the whole framework. The five factors include color, structure configuration, and the application of empty and solid sense, shaping and application of materials. Use the same Likert’s Seven Scale to evaluate the reception of simplicity of the ten screened products, ?Seriously Disagree? is ?1?, ?Completely Agree?is ?7? The analysis method of the first part will be used based on the individual factors in the questionnaire. The study conducts the basic analysis and provides diagrams, whose main contents include sex, age, education, knowledge or understanding of Muji, the statistic data adopt time, percentage, mode and the average to specify. Due to the contents in the questionnaire related to professional problems, the interviewees shall know to a certain degree of the oriental simplicity style, and as a result the sampling is adopted accordingly. Select 19 designers with industrial design background, 11 postgraduates from industrial design academies all totaling 30 interviewees for the questionnaire. The Second part will use T-test of single sample and will test the influences of one item on the others. The examination aims to test the selected 10 Muji products, to find out whether it has factors of oriental design style of simplicity if it reaches an obvious level and to find the main factors in the orient design of simplicity which will act as basis for the product conversion in the next stage. The study adopts Likert’s Seven Scale for evaluation, so the test value is set to be middle value 4, and the upper-tailed are adopted for the test to check whether the factors of simplicity exceeds 4 or not since the condition: obvious level is ?=0.05). The factors analysis will use the design and examination of this questionnaire aim to learn and discuss the external expression, through which, specific design rules will be explored so as to produce the style of oriental simplicity and mental feeling by getting the results of reception in three levels accomplished from the questions of brief answers. The expression of external appearance focuses on the texture and color of the material, without additional process, by using simple colors, pure symmetry in geometry, pure elements, and natural simple spiffy, materials. The whole style is simple, minimal, pure, plain, moderate, few but equal to many, basic original colors. The mental feeling comprises of comfortable, natural, green, element, calm, responsible, quiet, primal, regular, clean, pure, orderly, easy and top quality. TIME PLAN 3 months MA dissertation Activities Items Sept 2011 ? Oct 2011 ? ? ? Nov 2011 ? Dec 2011 12-Dec 2011 Dead line week 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 Topic research and idea planning and select ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Topic develop and modify and Improve ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Research information filing and analysis and discussion ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? All research material and information confirmed ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Final and conclusion for start to topic writing ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Final topic writing and preparing for submit ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Topic checking , Review, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? References Aaker, D. A. & Biel, A. L. (1995). Brand equity & advertising: Advertising’s role in building strong brands. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimension of brand personality. 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