S5E03 Design Experience with Xiaojing Huang

Xiaojing is the first person on the podcast to talk with an Asian perspective on color, design experience and CMF as she talks about the many differences between eastern and western consumer trends, preferences and color perceptions. As one of the most well-known CMF designers in China, Xiaojing will give her view on what is happening in the field and not just in China. 

Xiaojing Huang is a renowned design strategist and trend expert, strategy director and partner of YANG DESIGN, chief editor of China Design Trends Report.

Winner of Red Dot Design Award, IDEA and Design For Asia Silver Award, Influential China Young by Linkedin. Chief editor of China Design Trends Report, which is by far the authoritative annual trend report for the Chinese market since 2013. The report has successfully forecasted well-selling Chinese design trends including gradient, purple, copper green and iridescence. She is curator of CMF TREND LAB, and design column writer of magazines including md. Invited speaker of many design events including TEDx, Color Marketing Group, NCS color forecast and Semiofest. Xiaojing studied in Guangzhou and Berlin from experience design expert. 

As strategic director of YANG DESIGN, the forward-looking design consultancy in China, she has been leading the strategic team to build the CMF Lab and UX Lab , defining design strategy to realize business value for companies in different development stages. Her clients are leading brands including Boeing, BMW, GM, Nissan, Hyundai, Didi, Samsung, Microsoft, Huawei, BOSE, Haier, vivo, Schneider Electric, Unilever, Vanke, DuPont and 3M. 

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Transcript

[00:07] Judith van Vliet: Hey podcast fans, this is the color authority back again for yet another episode.

[00:12] Judith van Vliet: Today I'm going to be talking to Xiaojing  who is going to podcast with me from out of China. She's a renowned design strategist and trend expert, a strategy director and partner of Yang design chief editor, also of China Design Trends Report. She is the winner of the Red Dot Design Award, Ida for Design for Asia Silver Awards, and influential China Yang by LinkedIn, chief editor of China Design Trends Report, which is by far the most authoritative annual trend report for the chinese market since 2013. She was invited for design events including TeDx, Color Marketing Group, NCS Color Forecast, and the Simeo Fest. She studied in Guangzhou and Berlin as an experienced design expert. Now, as a strategic director of Yang Design, the forward looking design consultancy in China, she's been leading the strategic team to build the CMF lab and UX lab. She has had clients such as Boeing, BMW, GM, Nissan, Samsung, Microsoft, and many more. Let's listen to what her point on color is.

[01:17] Judith van Vliet: All the way out from China. Welcome to the Color Authority. You're calling out of China. You're my first Chinese guest on the podcast. So I'm super, super excited to know more about what you do in China.

[01:28] Xiaojing Huang: So, yeah, it's nice weather in south China. I mean, traveling today. Yeah, the perfect day to start our conversation with you.

[01:36] Judith van Vliet: So my first question is always the same for everybody, and I'd like to know that from you as well. Xiaojing, what is color to you? So what does color mean to you personally?

[01:46] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, I think color would be considered as emotional experience for me, actually, I used to study product design under the discipline of experience design when I was laboring. And until now, I still think that it's important to consider color and material as an experience. Yeah, when you talk about emotional experience, it's quite complex because human beings are the most complex things in the planet. We have different kinds of emotion. We feel seriously thinking about it. For example, we have emotion to be divine, to be surprised, to be discussed, or to relax, to identify. So there are loads of different emotions that I can think of that is language with colors. The very first thing that inspired me to do color and material, I think, is the iMac So I was in high school and I was very impressed by the very first iMac. Nobody think that computer could look nice. And and I think that power of color in combination of the material pc to surprise the consumers. And I think color would be to deny in most scenario in China for the past one year, there's a very dominant term in terms of color trends, and it's called dopamine colors because if you use color that is quite high in chroma and a little bright, maybe that you feel is quite reliable. It's almost like taking a candy in your mouth. And the tummy is extremely popular in fashion and also in some part of retail space designs in home appliance as well, especially kitchen appliance, Chinese labor clothes. I think this idea to delight people with the help of colors. And that's interesting because when I talk about it with people in Europe, for example, from Germany, they had very different idea about dopamine. So when they have the tongue, dopamine is not addictive and it's a negative term. But in China, I think it is linked with something very positive. I think that people feel very delightful.

[04:14] Judith van Vliet: It gives them energy.

[04:17] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, yeah. That's a good thing for people to realize that, oh, I miss some emotional values in my life. By the way, the term emotional value was talked about alone for the past two years in China. Yeah. We also have a channel called emotional show in our Chinese. I chose report. So I feel that after colleagues, people have to realize that maybe I need to take more care of myself instead of taking care of the others. So in eastern worlds such as Japan or China, I think people tend to care about others. People are always in a relationship. For example, families are important, kids are most important. And I think it's the time that people start to realize that maybe they need to think about their own emotions, how they really feel. Sometimes if you think about colors, it's useless in terms of function, but it just made you feel good. And that's what people are willing to pay nowadays, whether it's going to a store or getting in a nice dress or just buying something beautiful as flowers or kitchenware. So these kind of things were considered useless or impractical in your own room or traditional ways of thinking. But it's now considered most important for Chinese. And think about that, I think also kind of to give a space to respect, for example, respecting the rituals in south China, I think people spend a lot of time drinking tea, for example. So especially for premium Sichuan, so much they want to have their own tea house at home, their own garden. They don't need to pay music instruments. And I think colors extremely important also in terror design to create an ambient for consumers to relax. Also, I have worked for Boeing, the airplane  manufacturer, for, I think, more than ten years. And I think interior space, cabin space, is a very important kind of space to apply color and emotion. For example, if you enter aircraft when you are dining and also when you are trying to relax, the color of the night light is slightly different. It try to give you different emotions. For example, sometimes it helps you to focus with the. Within the other towns, it has a romantic setting to help you to relax and try to enjoy the ambience. So color obviously have a very big power in interior space. Color also helps you to identify, to remember. And I think as industrial designer, that's our job to how our clients products to be remembered by consumers. They pick their brand color, their advertising colors for the products. All of that is helping the brand to send out in a revolution and pastel and bustle of everyday line.

[07:41] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, color is a very tool to be used at for branding, but not also for as you said. So when you talk about interiors in China, which are different, of course, than interiors that you've seen in Germany, and I know you travel the whole world, so you've seen many interiors. But when you are talking about these tea rooms, for example, especially in certain parts of China, are there particular colors that you use in these rooms which are, in your opinion, different than how we use color in Europe, for example, to relax. Are relaxing colors different?

[08:15] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, I think the term relaxing or entertainment is totally different in western and eastern scenarios. For example, I remember that Americans want to go to bars, so they want to get high, they want to stand up alive. It's a very American thing to do. But in Germany, we don't dance in the bar or we don't dance in the party. And also in China we don't dance. Sometimes we don't even partake in. So people think that is not a very healthy thing. So people do not do that because, well, it's not. So we kind of want to have social setting that is more static and for example, just chatting around the table or making tea around her stool. So that's also kind of popular, like also eating hot pots. So having food together is already some part of our social gathering. So I think entertainment means very different things from Chinese and westerners in the very beginning. And I think how people want to relax and to choose maybe sometimes is a different example. The term outdoor is still relatively new in China. In the West, I think it already exists and popular for the past few decades. But in China, it's only until 2020 that we have the very first year of outdoor lifestyle. So it's only because of colleagues that people try to have plants in the park. People call it outdoor lamps. So we do not do a lot of things that is too extreme. For example, we don't come along mountain big gears. So I think in China people do not were not so active as westerners in sports or in excitement, but we try to chill in another way for our own health and wellness. And coming back to the example of tea house, for example, sometimes tea house means that you are sitting together with friends in a short settings, so you want to have a very social, personal conversation. So a lot of the design behind the tea house is to relax. For example, I think South China is a popular aspect to pick light colors because it's greatly inspired by the water and ink paintings. In all China is usually joined by scholars in history in China, who are at the same time governors. So it's very interesting. At one hand, they are working for the government, they are managing the people. At the other hand, they are also pursuing the spiritual and inner peace. So in China, people want to have two things at the same time as nice business, successful, but also inner peace.

[11:31] Judith van Vliet: What does that mean color wise, how can you do relaxing and business at the same time? And color wise, what does that look like?

[11:40] Xiaojing Huang: I would say that you need to separate the scenario. So even in one home the scenario would be quite different. For example, the kids room would be totally different from the key house or the living room or the kitchen also. So sometimes people separate the scenario a little bit. That's why sometimes you see totally different decoration style in different rooms. And material brands also need to cater to that. For example, coatings on the wall and also all furniture, wall materials, surface decors. But they need to cater to different scenarios as well. So I don't see that very strong in the Western. Sometimes it's more like a holistic design chance. But in China, I think the scenarios also appear very strong parts in the experience and also in the color choice.

[12:37] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, in Europe, I think people try to give the same style in the whole house. You know that everything is in a similar style, not different styles per room, so different moods. It's happening a little bit more, but people tend to. I mean, if you. So I was born in Netherlands, and when you now look at buying houses or renting houses, or if you even look at Airbnb in the Netherlands or in the northern, I think also in Germany, everything is white, beige, sand colors. There's. That's it. Everything is extremely neutral. So there's not a lot of play with emotions. And you don't have different scenarios per room, so you cannot look for different emotions when you're inside one home. So that is very different from what I hear from you, which is the Chinese way of living.

[13:32] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, I think only is because in China, and it is in general, a lot of people still live in family settings. So we are talking about more than three peoples or five people normally. So if you have a three generation living together, of course there are different pace, different preference you should cater to. So it makes more sense to decorate their rooms a little bit differently. The kids rooms that I mentioned about was extreme. So a lot of people nowadays are willing to extreme spent on kids rooms. For example, they have built a kiss from Peguan or little bit garden for the princess or something like that. So they know that the kids will grow up, but who cares? So that's what emotion pays. So nowadays we care more about we are living now, we are living in the moment and we want to have fun. So that's why colors or designs would be more and more important in the interior settings.

[14:40] Judith van Vliet: That's very interesting. So one of the questions that indeed that I wanted to ask you, because I know you work a lot in CMF. CMF obviously is everywhere. I always tell people color alone doesn't exist. It's always applied to something, of course to immaterial. And it's interesting to see how CMF suddenly over the last couple of years is growing and it's becoming very important. A lot of brands want and need CMF advice, expertise. They're hiring people. How do you feel that these changes have happened? And also do you have a feeling where CMF is moving in the future?

[15:22] Xiaojing Huang: When I started in Berlin, the professor teach experience design. The biggest problem was that no one understand what was experience design, because I studied there ever before the first iPhone was launched. So no one understands what is, what exactly is experience and what is design experience. But now if you ask a normal consumer, they know, whoa, experience of course is like playing you my phones, a lot of apps. So people are quite educated about experience and it takes 20 years to do so. I think the, the iPhone was so evolutional because it caused people what was experience, what was user experience designs. And I think it's the same for CMF. For example, before I ever get started, my boss, Jamie Yang, he used to work for Siemens in Munich. And 20 years ago I think they already have a dedicated department for CMF and they do chain studies for industrial product design, which was relatively new in China at that time. Only very few companies have their own lab. So I told them how young designed to build their first CMF chain apps. And also I do a lot of design trends ever since just, and I think we are educating the markets. For example, ever since about five years ago, we are invited by a very large furniture show in China to create away exhibitions. So they don't know anything about CMF. They want to have exhibition that is dedicated to material. But as soon as I see their ideas, I know that it has to do with CMF and that has to be color material together. No way that you can separate this from that. I don't think material can be a good idea on its own. So you cannot just display stack of materials to consumers or designers. They don't know how to pick. So you need to give them concept of how to mix and match according to trends and that's the way to go. So the kind of take on the ideas. We are the very first show in China that focus on CMF in home and everybody to follow success nowadays. So they name their exhibitions also a CMF as well. So this is just one of example how we are educating the markets before a lot of consumers are aware that, oh, we can do color material together, oh, we can focus more on color coordination, which introduce new materials to our industrial design. So that's why this process is very, very slow. I already been through for more than 20 years in my career and I think it continues. So this is not already the beginning to take off because of our social media, Internet, a lot of exposures of that. So yeah, hopefully we will have a goal very soon. Very much the same as user experience. 

[18:48] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, I think CMF, indeed it is. It was, you know, many years ago it was automotive industry, it was consumer electronics companies like HP, for example. They had CMF designers. And now it's very common to have a CMF designer. Do you think that now in China, people are aware more about what is CMF and the needs? Or is it a trend to have CMF? Are they already truly understanding? Because I feel even in Europe sometimes people are still not understanding. They think CMF is trendy, it's cool, they understand the necessity. But sometimes I feel still there's a gap, definitely.

[19:33] Xiaojing Huang: To be honest with you, in China there are very few academies, very few design academies that teach CMF. Actually, a lot of them adopt our chain prediction methodology to teach their students, which was great. They kind of prepare them before they know they are doing that in their own jobs. But most of the people that I met are not trained in CMF at all, including me, myself. So people are coming from other disciplines, so they kind of self talk. So if you really think about it, it's very ridiculous. But experience, design and industrial design are totally the same. My teacher herself taught us industrial designers at that time. He was the first generation of industrial designers in China. But look at what we are now. So I think that's the situation. And also, if I look at my contacts in my mobile phone, I have about 1000 people that is tapped under CMF. In China. That means the circle is still relatively very small, not including material producers, but just CMF designers. So I think in China and in the world, the circle is still very small. We are very niche. So you have maybe creativity and then design, industrial design and CMAP design. So we are very rich people. We designate need to promote that a little bit. So people who are getting aware of it and people try to learn it, try to apply that to their job.

[21:20] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, this is every conversation I have with somebody who is in color or who is in CMF, they are self taught. Everybody probably also due to, due to our generation, I'm 42 now, so obviously 20 years ago there were no, no color schools. And still it's not easy. I learned everything on the job. And of course through color marketing group, which I know you're also part of a Color Marketing Group. So it's interesting that still today, most people, they don't know where to study CMF. They want CMF or they want to know more about CMF. But still there's. It's not a very straight direction, it's not the easy direction to take. So that, that is definitely something that comes back in every conversation. It's very funny. You studied in Germany, you started in Guangzhou. Why did you pick Berlin? Why did you pick Germany? What was your interest to go to, out of all the countries that you could have studied, why Germany?

[22:21] Xiaojing Huang: Technically speaking, I do not pick Germany. So it was an opportunity given to me. But I was brainwashed in industrial design major that Germany was the initiator for industrial design. The Bauhaus was the ideal initiative for industrial design. So we are brainwashed at the very beginning. And yeah, I was given the opportunity to study in Berlin. I was the very first in my school that was given the opportunity, but it was great, so I took the opportunity. I also studied German a little bit before I go. So I think the environment was very different in China. I mean, 20 years ago, the industrial design major was still very much about teaching skills. So for example, computer skills was important. A lot of Chinese students had much better computer skill compared to their western peers. But in Berlin, I think the classroom was quite small, the workshop was very big, and we got all kinds of workshops that you cannot imagine in China at that time, ten years ago. And I think it's great because it's required for you to do push yourself, even that it changes you how to think in real things. So instead of doing things in computer, I think I did prototype. I did different prototypes during one semester. And I think it's a great changing process for industrial designers nowadays. You see these trends is also coming back globally and also in China. So a lot of children's projects have real polarities. I think it's great. That's what makes a difference. So because we are not just doing interface design or graphic design on the screen, we are actually getting in touch with real materials. So for industrial design, architects, interior and fashion, I think it's important. When you do something like your old lens, you experience, you know, the feature of materials, you know, how the. How the color reflects, so you know, the finish, you know, these kind of things. It helps you to think. And there's also, I think that offline workshop of CMG and other platforms are important as well. Offline workshops always tell us it stimulates designers to think. That's where our creativity can go.

[24:58] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I think it's very, very good that young design and yourself are involved in the Chinese market to also get people involved with color marketing group. Because what I've learned from Color Marketing Group is not only color material and finish, but also the networking, talking to other people, hearing their stories, and the storytelling. I think storytelling is hugely important in all culture, in all regions. Many years ago, when, for example Lidewij Edelkoort would say, this year it's yellow, everybody would be like, okay, it's yellow. Now you need a story. You need to explain people why. And it also needs to be, honestly speaking, it needs to be a beautiful story for people to get involved, to get emotional, to get feelings. This is also very much part of what CMF is. Are there any particular storytelling that you feel you do in China? Because perhaps it's different, or how do you connect, perhaps storytelling with heritage or with Chinese heritage, or with Chinese design, for example? Because in my opinion, heritage is becoming, again, very important for many. And I'd like to hear a little bit what your thoughts about that are within your design with Yang and Chinese heritage and history.

[26:23] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah. There's always been a trend about cultural confidence in China. I think we have that since 2008, when we had the first Olympic in Beijing. It boosts a lot of our cultural competence in China. And a lot of brands have been exploring how to made use of that Chinese style or Chinese heritage in the anti science ever since then. So this was always a trend that we've been following and there are different tendencies as well. For example, one big tendency is related to the tea house that we talked about. So in China we have Taoism as one of the, one of the religions. And I think longer people come back to Taoism or Buddhisms because they want to find their emotional value, their inner peace. So they kind of are connected to this kind of religions. For example, between young people, there's a very large chance to go to temples as a ritual experience, as a travel experience, or just to escape to west. So very interesting trend in China and in other areas as well. So for example, in China we have the rat race. So people are feeling that they have large pages from work, they don't have their personal space, their personal lives. So a lot of young people try to have a lifestyle of so called lying fat. So it's a popular term online. It's about demotivation. So people are not active, so they don't act as the region in their life. They try to be negative. And I also think that kind of trying to resist the rat race that we are facing right now. So when young people are resisting the mainstream trend in China, they don't do a revolution. So we try to avoid extreme, we don't do the revolution, but we try to resist softly. That's our way to resist the mainstream suffering, doing nothing, demotivation.

[28:58] Judith van Vliet: So it's literally trying to find balance by staying still, by being idle.

[29:06] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, staying still. So it's not that I'm young, I don't have money and I don't want to work very hard. I want to get off autism and I want to just stay where I was. So I don't, I don't want to move up either. And there's a notion behind this is the lifestyle, the Chan backgrounds. We tend to translate that into color materials sometimes. For example, I think in 2020, we have Chan called Seoul utopia. That's what we call. That's why we want to mentioned that chinese young people want to slow down. But can they slow down? I don't think so. So sometimes the environment, your job, force you to move, so you never stop. But you in your inner self, you have the tendency to slow down. And that's shown in their interior space designs in something very small that they can choose. For example, for the trends, we focus on the simple and almost Nordic design trends in interior space. The color of the year that we picked was called developed screens, which is the light green colors. And I think it's very fresh, very decorated. Also, I imagine that it could be used as a matte colors because ecologists demand was less in easily. That was also very influential trend and very successful car channel because many also picked ekalopta screen as their advertising color when they launched the card in China in 2020. So I think it's not just a very small group of people that is adapting this lifestyle, but you have a very popular audience among young people.

[31:12] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's a good case study or actually a success story. You know, a color that you had predicted because of how young people are feeling and then it being applied to actually a car, especially in matte. It's interesting. How so it means that similar to what we see in the west is that people don't have a lot of control right now because there's a lot happening, but they can control small things, so they can control their inner slowing down or, you know, their homes, of course, and their interiors. This is a trend, I think, that will continue to be around because I don't think slowing down is going to happen anytime soon, not for anybody going.

[31:56] Xiaojing Huang: To be faster and faster, even for color forecasting. So it's crazy. Yeah, of course the trend will continue. I think people want to grab everything they can control. For example, in China compared to Europe, I think there's a very interesting thing that people pay a lot, a lot more attention to the interior space of their car. So I've been in, I've seen a lot of cars, especially their interior space design. And I was so surprised that it looks so different from the Chinese products and the model they launching gel drops. So the European models are so plain and so simple and always in bag. So I can't believe that people don't want anything that is much more premium. But in China, even sort of entry level of these kind of cars, people expect, expect that it should be premium. So Chinese consumers are considering us their precious belongings or their toys or something they can control anyway. So these are luxurious goods, even for the ancient models. That's why Chinese have very high levels of premium ness for their car, for materials, for color choice. Also, I think for smell as well.

[33:19] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, that definitely is different. It could be influenced by the economical climate. You know, China is doing better economically, then Europe is doing better economically. And what we see in Europe, that young people, they're not buying cars, they're using the train the subway, bicycles. Bicycles are up, you know, bicycles also interesting CMF fields, you know, the bicycle market, especially here in Europe, a lot happening because people, indeed, like you said, outdoor trends in China is not yet very big here. It's been big for a couple of years. People want to be outside and in a car you're not, you know, again, you're inside something and still it's very much seen as a means of transport, just from a to b. I live in the middle of the city center, so also I don't need a car. So that also has something to do with the urban lifestyle that we're seeing here. But it's interesting to see those differences. What do you sometimes feel? Because I have that also as a european and how people tend to see Europeans, besides the fact that Europe is very diverse, of course, what perceptions do people still have about China and chinese design that actually are no longer existing? People are still very much in their head about what is chinese design and what does it mean to be a chinese designer in design in general, for.

[34:47] Xiaojing Huang: Example, I think people expect that Chinese design would have some heritage elements, and I think it exists in every product category or every design in some, of course, but not everything. So sometimes we are inspired by, for example, heritage, such as ceramic, and we use that inspiration in color coding, for example, maybe even in past six. So that's acceptable, I think. But not everything is inspired by Chinese heritage or history in China. I don't think so, because China is so big and consumers are so diverse and is like ten different markets at the same time. So I definitely think that now is getting along and more and more settlements of different consumer markets. Especially a lot of brands are now doing different segments, showing their different price polish for different consumers, and they carried to different preference. You didn't see it before, you didn't see it nine, six years ago. So at that time, usually, for example, mobile phone only had one price of products, but now they have products in every price tiers. And that's how you think that China is so big. You need to cater to different tastes also. That's why I think the choice of color and material have to take into consideration of the consumers, their experience, their lifestyle and preference. So I also did a lot of research on that, not only just about color trends also. So sometimes I need to combine the trend for color materials together with the lifestyle studies. I also need to interview consumers. So by doing that, we can finally bridge the gaps between what is trending considered by designer or the design markets, and also what is acceptable for consumers.

[37:01] Judith van Vliet: On the other hand, let's say that, so you work with many brands, and not only Chinese brands, you work with a lot of brands from all around the world. But let's say that now you have a new client who has never worked with China before. What are the things they really need to take care of? So they're a Western client. They're for the first time entering China. What are some things that are really important when it comes to color? So how they really need to think about color differently because the market is different?

[37:36] Xiaojing Huang: That's a very big question. I never seriously think about that. So there's growth semesters research, I would think, but interesting questions. I listen specifically compare the color preference between China and the West, but I did some comparison about cultural difference, consumer behavior difference for brands, for example. I also work for a lot of brands in America, and also Colgate. So I tell them what's the difference between the consumer preference? And sometimes it's about the different stage of development for societies. I think the Chinese society and consumers are relatively similar to Korean markets, for example. But it's a little bit different from Japan or Europe, for example. In Japan and Europe, sometimes when you buy a car or when you buy cosmetic, you want to be sustainable. So you try to reduce the process, all the coatings, even that you use in a product. But in China and Korea, I think it's relatively different. It's still kind of a positive way of consuming. And people want to own things at this stage, and they want to instead a little bit premiums. So the premium is about how it looks, how it feels is still relatively more important than how it should be sustainable, because it's a contradictory thing. You cannot be sustainable and premium and luxurious. And sometimes in most of the scenarios, yeah.

[39:28] Judith van Vliet: What is premiousness right now in China? What does premium mean? Is it gloss? Is it iridescence? Is it metallics? Is it soft material?Is it leather?
What is premium right now in China?

[39:42] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, I was saying that this coming China called light luxury, which means that it's a light premium line luxury. So it's kind of combining simple style with premium and luxury style. Sometimes people call it Italian, sometimes they call it french. So the different kind of style that you can pay, especially in precarious space, for example, people think that Italian style is a little bit about gray colors, relied on the big silver brands. I also think that, for example, Dacia was hitting the premium market in China. And a lot of the color scheme is about gray, beige, wooden, tones. But the French style is a little bit different. For example, a lot of the interior space have biochemists. They have cream colors in a sofa. So people consider that to be french. So it's a little bit wear also, but the tendency is different. Also, there's a wabi sabi san that is popular for premium comp and that is a little bit Japanese, and try to be a little bit more textures in the materials. So I would say that it's more about textures and less about the colors. Because I think sometimes color and texture need to have a balance as well. If you have very strong textures, maybe you need to reduce the colors a little bit. So in general, I think the premium market have different small tendencies, but they also tend to be nice, simple, safe. But there's some nuance, especially in textures. I'm not sure how it has nuance in colors, but it will be worth looking into. Maybe in my next project.

[41:45] Judith van Vliet: No, but I definitely agree that when you're having a lot of pattern or texture, you need to slow down a little bit with color. I think sometimes color can distract, especially when there's a lot of happening, especially in a texture area. I think one of my favorite examples is as great architecture agencies, Zaha Hadid. You know, I love the shapes and the forms, but very often it's in white or gray or beige color. So that your focus is on the shape and the texture, not on the color. Because color is so strong emotionally, that when it's blue or red or bright green, you're more influenced by the color than by the shape and by the texture. So, yeah, interesting. Also, what you say about texture and touch, you know, haptic. Do you think haptic is still going to continue? Haptic. So the touch and feel, how things, is that still important?

[42:47] Xiaojing Huang: Yeah, definitely. If you look at the market about seven years ago, the dominant trend was gloss finished. So everything we will buy from in the cupboard in our wall, it's glossy. But now everything is matte and high in both textures. So I think it's a shift between the aesthetic. So people are getting more and more into the premium stuff, the premium textures, instead of what they would be gloss. So gloss is a little bit bling bing. It's a bit more eye catching in the noise, but I think textures give you more emotional venues you are curious to explore. You want to touch the textures. So I think that's the trend that we want to continue. There's also a very strong development trend about developing different embossed textures in laminated areas. Surface decals and so on. So that's very, very huge. I didn't know it before because I was industrial designer, so I designed very small things. But it's only when I was designing for interior, somehow, when I work for material brands that decorates the interior space, I learned these little things, and I think it's important. Also, I think you mentioned premium colors such as metallic. And I also think it's important because in interior space, because in general, the color choice is like pale light color, safe color in China. So I think definitely really a lot of essence colors. So we need small decorative parts, whether it's metallic or high chroma colors. We definitely a lot of that in interior space. And sometimes people cannot remember that because in the past we had different jobs. So there's one interior designers, maybe there's another designer for soft up hosting, or maybe you pick the product yourself. But now the challenge is that it's integrating, so consumers want to buy their things one stop. And that's good news for designers, for brands as well. So brands are trying to produce different things, or they, they offer our products with their partners together at their home. So I think there's also a very great chance, definitely, you can try to think about color and texture more holistically in the interior space instead of just picking one thing. So applying laminated materials and couples, that's not helping. I think you need to consider them together.

[45:39] Judith van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. I think color in per se is you either do that from a holistic point of view, and I think that's also, has been for many years, the main issue. People tend to pick colors they like, but then they don't fit together either in a space or even with fashion. You know, a lot of people, obviously they have their closets full of clothes that obviously they don't, they don't fit together or they don't fit, actually with their, with their personality when we do. And that, I think, also is because we do color forecasting. And there is the color of the year. There's a lot of marketing and promotion about color, which is good, but it's sometimes also creating an issue with, obviously, what is sustainability. And you just said that sustainability sometimes is not the top priority in China. It's more a priority now, now in Europe. But obviously, when you talk about color forecasting, so you do summer colors, you do winter colors, or every year you do a new color forecast. The big question here is, is that sustainable? Because you're telling brands and people to do new colors every season and every year. How do you see this with the chinese perspective. What do you think is the future happening in color forecasting?

[47:04] Xiaojing Huang: Well, currently is still what you mentioned. So it's been ten years that I know that in cosmetic they have different seasonal colors. And I think it's a bit ridiculous. So you cannot be filled with this color choice, you cannot be filled with different colors of lipsticks in your for jobs. And I don't know, I think we don't need so many choices and it's much more about how to mix and match, especially in fashion, in interior designs and in a lot of things. But on the other hand, I totally get why brands are doing that. For example, in consumer electronic and in automotive that I usually work with, the technology is basically the same and even the function of the products are the same. So the only difference is the cover of the products. Industrial designers are designing cutlers and car designers. Sometimes CMF designers can only change the colors to renewal products once a year because we cannot afford a new tooling area. So the easiest ways to change is color. Sometimes we are able to change the material and texture this way. But I totally understand why people want new product because CMF served a business purpose, one or multiple. So it's boost sales to increase awareness or to raise reputation also anyway. But we are designers, we serve business partners and that's it. It has been in the business for the past decades and I think it will not change in the future. Also because it's not about just expressing yourself, it's always about helping other people to achieve their business goals. So on the other hand, I get it why they are doing it so fast. And I want to mention to you one example, this is one of my clients in China, the largest furniture brands online. So they sell most products for the past decade that they're the number one on selling furniture online and they want to be the furniture brand like Zara. And when you think of Zara, it's a fast fashion. It's ridiculous that they can shorten the circle for production for maybe one or two weeks. And that's what furniture industry is doing right now. So from total nothing to a product that is sellable in the markets, you only, it only takes about two weeks. So yeah, so they've been doing that for the past few years. And if you see the web store is constantly launching new products and that's because they adapt trends very fast and they constantly need to adapt new trends. So that's how Internet markets think, that's what they want to do and that's how they adapt and survive in the markets. I totally have nothing to say about their business models. So if people want to do that and serve their business purpose, that's fine for me as well. But I don't think you can get fast consuming fashion and sustainability at the same time. No, not totally. Maybe in some part, I don't know, maybe in their wooden material they try to reduce coating, for example, for kids furniture. That's great. But other than that, I don't know what else you can do.

[50:55] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, recycled materials. Recycled materials. Obviously that also helps. But it's indeed, it's one thing or the other one. And of course if we want to have a completely sustainable world, we cannot produce. So that's obviously a problem. But what I hear is that in China it's still very important to keep producing fast according to what fashion dictates, what consumers are wanting or what they think that they want and what they need. So that definitely is interesting point of.

[51:29] Xiaojing Huang: View and I think you can tell us. Well, so this is also a field that I want to explore maybe in some future projects how to separate the trendy fashionable colors with the classical color choice. I think you serve a lot of business purpose for corporates. So there are nine different corporates for different colors. Sometimes you need colors for advertising, sometimes you need color to sell. So people choose these colors differently, especially in automotive. So as far as I know, the most well signed colors have been white for many, many decades. But you cannot promote white colors in your advertising photos. So no one will be attracted to that. So I think people want to separate this different business purpose in their color system as well. I think if we can somehow establish sender or system for that, that would be so helpful. Yeah, I don't know if color marketing go is doing it. I don't think so. So it's always about changing colors. But yeah, maybe you do some archaeology thinking about classical color and I think it's great. Also I was part of the forecast for NCS and wild colors. And I think also people handle a big difference. For example, for wild color system they try to integrate as many classical colors in their trends as possible. So that's very interesting for me to hear that. I think it's very signature for german brands maybe to have classical colors in their color systems and together with the new products. So I totally appreciate what you're doing there. Very helpful.

[53:24] Judith van Vliet: That's true. Now in color marketing group we do have colors that come back from every other year and also we sometimes see that. For example, for I was part of the color marketing group conference in Europe already this year. So it's interesting that there are some colors that were already predicted maybe one year or two years ago in Asia or North America, because I think there's more movement of what is happening with colors. I personally work a lot with german clients, and it's true, longevity is important for more and more brands. So in my personal work as the color authority, I work a lot more on longevity. So whether you call them classic, I call them longevity colors. So color set for a certain product, for a certain market are not too trendy, but people can enjoy them for a longer period of time. So that's something that I think that right now in Europe is very important. Trends are still there, but also to have a color palette that is more for a longer period of time. So maybe five years or even longer. So that's interesting how we see a shift in Europe happening, and I see it in my client work. They're wanting less color trends. They want more something for their brands, their products, and their market. So that's already a shift that is definitely happening here. Yeah, mainly in consumer electronics that I work with and appliances. Yeah. So, yeah. Interesting to hear the differences between, between the markets. So, yes, no, thank you.

[55:04] Xiaojing Huang: Something that we should explore.

[55:07] Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, I think that definitely is where sometimes you see trends that come from China and they come to Europe, and sometimes they come from Europe or from the United States or other parts of the world. And it's never first Europe or America or first China. It's interesting how you see those flows, and it's interesting to research those flows of trends and colors. Yes. Thank you so much for all the information that you've shared. This has been super interesting also for my audience. So I wanted to thank you for your time, especially on your Saturday evening, and I hope to talk to you very soon.

[55:49] Xiaojing Huang: Again, thank you for inviting.

[55:52] Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this last episode. If you are a fan of the color Authority podcast, please let us know by reviewing and rating our show on whichever platform you're listening on. The next episode is coming out next month, and in the meantime, I'm wishing you a wonderful, colorful day.