A Comparative Study Of Western Design Philosophy

The paper focuses on the theoretic preceding of the subject the comparative Research of Chinese traditional design philosophy compared the western design philosophy since the Revolutionary of industry. The science of industrial design is a new comer in Chinese mainland. However, the idea of design has long history in China. Today, China has become a member of WTO. We can imagine the competition of the product design will become more and more furious not only with the native but also with the foreign companies. Western design culture has deeply affected Chinese design and become the mainstream in the past 20 years. Under this condition, Chinese designers, while they learn from the western oriented model, should fix their eyes on Chinese-oriented design based on the following reasons:In the first place, China is rich in design resources in traditional culture and especially in design philosophy. The second reason why we should not overlook the values and elucidation of own cultural tradition is that western design philosophy itself has led to improper practices in the design development in western countries. Lastly, standing at the point of inheriting our cultural traditions, Chinese designers will return to the very origin of their cultural systems before they can possibly step onto the unique "Chinese- oriented designs". And, in turn, Chinese designers can develop unique design languages and play a key role on the stage of design in the international community.During the six parts of the article, the first is the introduction that explains briefly the purposes and matters of writing, and draws the skeleton of the whole paper; the second part is the main part that reviews the effect of Chinese philosophy on product design in history, compared with the design ideas of western design development in history, and finds out the difference and similarity of West-East design philosophy in the view of the whole concept; the third part approaches the active significance of Chinese philosophy on western design and its vital role in modern design; at last, it is pointed out that in the information society Chinese designers should integrate the eastern philosophy with the western philosophy, and create an artful living.