Ch4. Unwrapping CMF Design on Design Concepts Brought to Life

If you have ever experienced home remodeling, you’d know about this frustration. For a simple wooden floor illustrated in the floor plan, there are quite some selections for the actual applications, and each comes with pros and cons: expensive solid wood, tear-able laminated boards, or cheap looking wood-like plastic floors. In the face of these many options, it can be nerve-racking and difficult to make a decision 🤯 (中文版)

Similar concerns are the daily challenges for CMF Designers. But on the other hand, this is what makes our work puzzle-solving fun!

CMF is a specific discipline within industrial design that focuses on the development of a product’s color, material, and finish. Unwrap CMF shares bite-sized stories of CMF Design to inform and inspire those interested in this niche yet fascinating field, with digestible contents for anyone and everyone.

For instance, a computer-generated rendering with a marble pattern can be realized with a variety of processes. Each process has its own advantages and disadvantages, which are mixed with different elements to consider. Cost and process constraints are the basics. There are more complex limitations such as stability, production capacity, supply chain…, and more!

This is why, as mentioned in the previous chapters, even the easiest CMF proposal can involve an infinite loop of discussions between cross-functional teams.

Switching to a new product category will also initiate different considerations. For example, the printing process commonly used on home decoration and fabric products may come across its bottleneck when used in another industry: unable to print on big curvature, supply chain capability, test standard and factory dust-free control for our industry, etc.

On the positive side, this makes CMF an endless exploration of new knowledges.

You can know about a CMF process so well but still have something new to learn. You can be with years of experiences but still feel young and passionate with interesting challenges ahead of your footsteps 😉

Various printing processes also have their pros and cons.

Different batches of natural materials such as marble and wood would have distinctive and inconsistent colors and textures.

Patterns are randomized through coating or material mixture.

Enjoy learning? Use the CMF terminologies mentioned above and continue on with your own research journey on the web. Comments and inspirations are welcome!
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