Designing the future of LG home appliances
LG engaged Design Central to help advance its home appliances—and we did it successfully for 26 projects over 12 years. Do you store your detergent above your washer so you can easily tip it into the drum? Do you organize your fridge so you can access certain items quickly? In our work with LG, we set out to understand how you make your home appliances work better for you—then applied that learning into forward-thinking concepts for the multinational company. Our research-backed concepts continue to prove influential to the company’s approach to product development.
Client
- LG Home Appliances
Industry
- Consumer
Capabilities
- Strategy
- Research
- Product Design
- Engineering
- Prototyping
- User Experience
Objective: Support LG's advancement in the home appliance market with thorough research and fresh thoughtful designs.
Product design aims to strengthen client’s presence in multiple markets
LG entrusted us to advise them on potential design features and how to better establish their visual brand language (VBL) in the United States and beyond. This carried into concepts for more modern refrigerators for both U.S. and Korean consumers; the design of a washer and dryer with updated technology, including touch screen capability; and a design exploration into cooking ranges with forward-thinking functionality (think: communal cooking). We encouraged coordinating aesthetics so a potential buyer could recognize any LG product from 30 feet away. And as each project presented a new challenge, our team’s approach remained flexible to the needs of the client. The outcome? A more defined future for LG home appliances.
In-home and competitive research help guide direction of client product lines
Spending time interviewing end users and observing them as they interacted with their home appliances long aided us in bringing helpful ethnographic research to LG. We discovered opportunities for improvement in current products, including refrigerators, washers, dryers, electric ranges and more. And we collaborated to ideate design features, especially in areas consumers might not have even considered. Understanding market trends and conducting competitive research helps us examine aesthetics, functionality and longevity of competing appliances. These methods don’t just influence our own designs for LG—they have helped the company validate its future plans for product development.