Since 1970s, the central value of our society moved from industry to information, then to knowledge, and moving on to the 21st century, a newly emerging central value is culture. Likewise, today’s consumers do not simply buy products, but buy the ex...
Since 1970s, the central value of our society moved from industry to information, then to knowledge, and moving on to the 21st century, a newly emerging central value is culture. Likewise, today’s consumers do not simply buy products, but buy the experience and sensibility included in them. In this way, culture is increasingly gaining higher value. Among culture, design is standing out as a keyword that reflects the culture of the time, because the design reflecting the culture of the time becomes again the source and direction for creating new designs. In most cases, however, domestic businesses are still utilizing design not as a strategic resource of business, but as a tactic role, functional and secondary, that provides forms and usability. Such products launched by the businesses that understand design as a secondary tactic have short life spans and are easily weeded out in the market.
In contrast, such design products as the iPod and iPhone of Apple, the MINI of BMW, and the past Walkman of SONY have provided new experiences and created new culture for users by reflecting the culture of the times, thus taking their places as the icons of the times.
Thus, it is necessary to suggest the design and method that can produce new culture by creating strategic values, figuring out this circulating structure between design and culture.
At present, the global village is seeing the era of aging society opens up: as the average life span increases with medical development along with low fertility, the entire globe is rapidly aging.
According to the U.N. estimation, the proportion of the senior over 65 is estimated as 27.3% in Japan; 23.4% in Switzerland; 23.3% in Denmark; 23.2% in Germany; 22.4% in Sweden; 19.8% in the U.S; and 19.4% in the U.K. In Korea, it will be expected as 14.3% in the coming 2022, a sign of entering an aging society, and will be 19.3% in 2030, a sign of entering a super-aging society. In this rapid current of aging, the silver generation of people who have various economic and social needs increased, along with the development of silver industry, in which such products as to aim at the silver generation are showing steady growth and variation. In this market, the senior generation is drawing attention as a large class of potential consumers who purchase various products according to their own individualities and lifestyles, and based on their needs of consumption and economic powers, various silver products have been launched in the market. However, the reality in the existing silver product market is that there are mainly the physical assistant devices for the old or the special products for health care, most of which focus only on the fall of motor activities of the senior, dismissing the consideration of their culture and lifestyles. Unlike the past in which the aged people were dependent and helpless, it is expected in the future that a new generation is formed as the active senior who enjoy independent lives, not economically and spiritually depending on their offspring, but having high will of self-investment, high level of consumption, and the contemporary lifestyle in which they enjoy fashion and sports, who will be the main axis of silver consumer generation. This study intends to deal with the design that expects and reflects their culture.
Also, with the emergence of the active senior, another topic in the near future is a transportation means that utilizes alternative energies. The situation is that eco-friendly and electric automobiles for controlling global warming are increasingly in the limelight. For electric automobiles, it is expected that their proportion in the overall automobile market will come close to 20% in 2020, considering each developed nation’s policy of fuel economy and exhaust gas, speed of technological development, charging infrastructure, and development trend of automobile enterprises. It is very urgent, as it were, to develop the electric automobile for the silver generation who will rapidly emerge as a new consumer power around 2020.
Therefore, this study aims at expecting and analyzing the culture of the active senior in the near future, drawing their needs, and suggesting the electric automobile design as a medium that can contribute to creating their own culture as a new trend in the near future.