A Research And Design On Vinyl Toys Based On The Theory Of Emotional Design

Living standards have been greatly improved thanks to rapid economic development since China's reform and opening up thirty years ago. Consequently, young people in the urban areas are getting increasingly busy and heavy workloads make them exhausted mentally as well as physically. Moreover, the popularity of information tools in the information age has them enclosed in a virtual space without regard to communications with others. Hence, the exchange and dialogue are becoming increasingly necessary between human and human, between human and nature and between human and culture. People are starting to put more emphasis on their spiritual life when they are satisfied with physical lives. They seek emotional satisfaction and care by others. They need a relaxing and simple way of living, an emotional vent by talking to others and a life of atmosphere and style.Emotional appeal is the central idea of emotional design. Also, it is the starting point of this research. The research studies, with the objective to meet emotional needs of end-user, product design on the concept of emotional design to realize emotional communications through product which is "intermediate" form in this case. Based on the theory of emotional design the research not only explores modern product design but also analyzes design methodologies in the history of modern design in an effort to give a comprehensive reading of design theory.The research finally takes vinyl toys as a case study. For toy industry and designers, this is a new attempt to demonstrate the theory of emotional design and related design tools and methods. There have been many successes in the development of vinyl toys in domestic enterprises. Nevertheless, the introduction of emotional design into vinyl toys is a good way to increase added value of the product, as it fully reflects the designers'understanding of user's emotional needs and spiritual demands. Additionally, the research also wants to seek a new design method which is considered as example of toy design for domestic toy enterprise. From the point view of marketing and business strategy, emotional design can increase added-value of product brand, thereby sharpening the competitiveness of a toy enterprise in domestic market.