With the recent launch of its “The Art Line” brand, Daikin Industries introduces a new concept into air conditioning that enables you to freely design your own space according to your own tastes and preferences. Now visual images and textures of traditional crafts, artwork, and natural materials can be utilized in the front panels of “risora,” a residential air conditioner with a slim design, and the “Humidifying Type Streamer Air Purifier (70 type).” In this article, designer Kazuki Morimoto gives his take on the message and development process behind these designs.
Creating Comfortable Spaces with Air Conditioning Design
Homes are not limited to being places for daily living, but they can also become places for work, entertainment, and hospitality. “The Art Line” arose from our desire to create air conditioners that not only improve air quality but also enhance the appearance and ambience of a room with the addition of color.
For example, as with carefully crafted masterpieces of art, some items in your home exist solely to lift your spirits just by having them. With that in mind, we wanted Daikin air conditioners to evolve to the level of artwork by adding color to the spaces you occupy.
Three Lines of Different Colors, Designs, and Textures
“The Art Line” has three lines that differ in colors, textures, and designs.
●BLEND Line
This line enables you to freely combine a hand-picked selection of colors and textures.
●NATURE Line
This line captures the feeling of natural materials down to their rough textures for chic
integration into the interior decor.
●ART Line
This line allows you to incorporate art into your life and find your perfect masterpiece.
In particular, “risora” provides an option called Custom Style, which lets you choose from approximately 600 color variations for the paint color. In addition to color, a special printing technology now enables us to apply an uneven finish to express a wider variety of textures. By adding texture to the existing color, we feel that we can further enhance our conceptual aim of delivering “harmony with spaces.”
A Collaboration of Artists for ART Line
Of the three lines, ART Line represents a collaboration with the creative company HERALBONY, which aims to challenge the preconceptions of disability through art. The company vision coincides with a desire to change the image of home appliances and create an innovative approach to choosing an air conditioner, making it akin to choosing artwork. This thinking was incorporated into “The Art Line.” Highly originals designs were completed by adopting the artwork of the artists under licensing agreements with HERALBONY.
Valuing Human Sensibilities in the Expression of Material Textures
Accurately reproducing the intrinsic appearance of a material is especially difficult. No matter how precise a printing technology may be, simply scanning and printing it out invariably fails to convey the “genuine quality” of the original. For this reason, we deliberately left in “noise” that would be recognized as the scratches or dirt from ordinary manufacturing and took the time to find a balance that would bring out the beauty of the product.
Especially for the BLEND Line, which allows you to choose from five different textures for the same color, the appearance of a color typically changes depending on the texture. There were countless of times when colors appeared the same when viewed digitally but then appeared different when seen in person. Ultimately, we valued the designer's sense of color and made numerous adjustments to make the texture appear more natural to the human eye.
Designs Adapted to Your Daily Life
For me, “manufacturing that adapts to human life” is one of the major themes for product design. The air conditioning equipment that we manufacture is literally as indispensable for our daily lives as air is. That’s why our key message of “Creating spaces with a free mind and spirit” stated in “The Art Line” could be considered a new initiative that differs significantly with conventional wisdom in the industry.
As for the future, I would like to continue working to enhance the value of customer experiences by reexamining the relationships between objects and lifestyles and incorporating that understanding into design.
