KCC Holds ‘2022 Design Trend-Pulse Seminar’

Main design theme ‘Symbiosis’ selected, presenting design strategies attuned to the times

KCC (CEO Chung Mong-jin) is strengthening communication and cooperation with its client companies by holding the customer-tailored ‘2022 Design Trend-Pulse Seminar.’

In particular, this seminar drew a positive response by sharing design trends through a variety of formats, including invitational seminars, on-site visit seminars, and online seminars suited to non-face-to-face settings. Since this past February, KCC has invited major client companies and stakeholders to its Design Center located in the company’s Seocho-dong headquarters to tour the exhibition space, or has had KCC’s design specialists visit client companies directly. Depending on each client’s circumstances, non-face-to-face online seminars were also offered so that clients could experience KCC’s color design technology and trends and share related products. To date, roughly 1,100 clients and stakeholders have taken part in the trend seminars, creating a forum for in-depth sharing and discussion of design information and enabling KCC to build cooperative relationships that generate synergy between the two sides’ design technologies and products.

A KCC official said, “Trend-Pulse is a one-on-one customized seminar for a wide range of industries—including home appliances, automobiles, construction and architecture, shipbuilding, and steel—that proposes design solutions tailored to each client’s business area and market needs, allowing us to build friendly, cooperative relationships,” adding, “Together with KCC’s design capabilities, we will continue to pursue a variety of projects so that clients can raise the value of their products and brands, boost sales, strengthen their competitiveness, and grow alongside us.”

Three themes proposed each in the CMF (home appliances, mobility), interior, and exterior segments

KCC selected ‘Symbiosis’ as its main design theme for 2022. In a society that has undergone tremendous change amid the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies such as AI, AR, and VR have served as a new dimension of balancing tools that ease the constraints of reality for people. KCC presented a design strategy suited to an era that calls for turning the imbalances of daily life into balance, seeking out lifestyles befitting the new normal, and coexisting with nature and technology. In 2022, we keenly feel the collision of opposing phenomena in every aspect of our lives. From the coexistence of the real and the virtual driven by the emergence of virtual spaces as a hot issue, to the experience of ownership and emptying brought on by economic polarization, and to lifestyles shaped by atypical consumption trends—the spaces we now inhabit have come to focus not on a single purpose but on the experience of coexistence.

At the 2022 Trend-Pulse, KCC proposes three themes for each of four segments: ▲CMF (Color, Material, Finishing) home appliances ▲CMF mobility ▲interior ▲exterior.

In the ‘CMF home appliances’ segment, KCC proposed ▲Eclectic Cadence ▲Neo Psychedelia ▲Eco Couture as color and design serving as devices for emotional balance, while in the ‘CMF mobility’ segment it focused on the emotional rapport between people and mobility, proposing the colors and materials of ▲Love Harmony ▲Fantasy Empires ▲Passionate Protagonist. In particular, the 2022 ‘CMF mobility’ segment forecasts the lifestyles and cityscapes that changes in mobility will bring, and proposes colors and designs of coexistence that focus on the emotional rapport between mobility and people. Among these, ‘Love Harmony’ captures the beauty of mutual flourishing—naturalism for all living things and a utopia that embodies moments that are perfect in themselves. ‘Fantasy Empires’ seeks to tell a story about our latent desires. It introduces the concept of virtual space, which is undergoing rapid change in the post-COVID era, along with the psychological and social backgrounds of those who are emerging as a new consumption trend accordingly. In the ‘CMF home appliances’ segment, ‘Eclectic Cadence’ focuses on design strategies for a life shared together as we discover the existence of things we had not known in a world that had been marginalized. As the value placed on respect for diversity has deepened, the world has been able to move beyond a Western-centered society and widely spread the authenticity inherent to each nation’s people. As a result, cultures of the periphery have begun to draw attention, and a respect that acknowledges rather than rejects or ignores the history of experience has begun to become mainstream. ‘Neo Psychedelia’ focuses on the surreal designs seen in a third space removed from reality. New forms of design that break down the binary boundary between online and offline are appearing across various industries, and rather than simply accepting concepts such as the metaverse and virtual reality as new, attention is shifting to just what can be realized and what content can be told.

In addition, the ‘interior’ segment focused on the changed roles of commercial and residential spaces in the post-pandemic era, introducing ▲Transitional Connect ▲Emptiness Value ▲New Luxury. In particular, ‘Transitional Connect’ deals with the real and virtual content and worldviews that have drawn attention as we enter the present era, and with the diverse consumer psychologies derived from them. These singular points have created a present society that perceives the world through multiple perspectives rather than a single one, and that further pursues multi-persona characteristics. In particular, the concepts of virtual space and virtual content, in a situation where fundamental consumer desires are changing, create a movement toward pursuing diverse worldviews and identities rather than settling on a single piece of content and characteristic. ‘Emptiness Value’ is a story about emptied space. The emptying trend that has emerged since COVID has given rise to a new lifestyle centered on sustainable living. The purpose of spaces that were once filled unconditionally has changed, and our mindset toward living our lives and viewing our spaces stands at that transitional point. An emptied space does not mean simply a clean interior like white wallpaper; rather, more valuable spaces are gaining the spotlight by removing what is unnecessary and revealing what truly matters. This theme introduces a new minimalism in the current social trend of gaining more by emptying and in the accompanying space trends.

Beyond this, the ‘exterior’ segment proposed the color designs of ▲Highlight ▲Right Light ▲Light the Color Up, centered on the bright future to which we aspire in the post-pandemic era. The proposed colors are produced as color specimens that can be actually applied and mass-produced, and are developed into customized consulting for clients in fields such as automobiles, home appliances, and architecture.

Meanwhile, the ‘Trend-Pulse Seminar’ is a venue for forecasting product, interior, and exterior design trends—centered on consumer lifestyles and needs and on industry and market trends—to propose various design solutions and deliver inspiration for product development. The colors and materials proposed in the seminar were developed through joint research by the design team and the color development team, based on the color database and know-how accumulated by the KCC Color Design Center. (Materials provided by: KCC) 02-3480-5000

▲ CMF home appliances, Eclectic Cadence

▲ CMF home appliances

▲ CMF mobility, Love Harmony

▲ CMF mobility, Fantasy Empires

▲ CMF mobility

▲ Interior, the Aesthetics of Emptiness

▲ Interior, Transitional Connect

▲ Interior