If you thought that industrial design was just about fitting components together and adding a company logo, think again. Samsung has a global network of design studios which employs around 1,500 designers, making it one of the world’s largest design powerhouses.
Samsung Galaxy Fold6
I sat down to talk to Felix Heck, Head of Samsung Design Europe, and Deborah Honig, Chief Customer Officer for Samsung UK about what goes into Samsung’s design.
First, Felix Heck explains how the studios are set up, and stressed the material technology capabilities. “We are not only designers, we also have experts majoring in sociology, engineering and psychology, which encourages a different perspective and promotes creative collaboration. In recent years there’s been a big shift to user experience which is why these disciplines are so important for the product aesthetic. Samsung has a global network of studios and each studio is tasked with developing innovative design, identifying regional specific needs and staying abreast of global trends.”
He goes on, “I work in London and Milan. One of our main roles is trend forecasting. We investigate how social shifts happen, where they happen. That means we look for the next generation of product design and user experience. We have always been focused on design and diverse talents design various products for people around the world. And that message leads us on a path from 1996 that never changed.”
That doesn’t mean things don’t change, and Samsung adopts new design identities every few years. In the 2000s this was expressed as “Simplicity with Resonance,” for instance, and the company has now distilled its focus into three words: essential, innovative and harmonious.
Heck explains that this means, “delivering authentic experiences in a simple and clear form and to solve real problems. I think essential is also part of making a positive impact on what people need when they use technology. The Galaxy S24 demonstrates this in a beautiful and solid form with a linear design that brings the screen into the focus. So, when you interact with the device, there’s nothing that distracts you from doing what you want to do and you can be immersed in it very easily. It delivers everything that someone would expect from a mobile phone, but it also has a design that is simple.”
Deborah Honig says that innovation is something very straightforward for Samsung: “We firmly believe that the purpose of design is also to innovate but we focus on addressing real problems and bringing valuable changes. It’s not merely about being the first one or the new one. It is much more about being meaningful and having something that is really useful.” And harmonious, I’m told, means pursuing a design that complements a user’s lifestyle with sensitivity and consideration. A great example of that is the Samsung Picture Frame, which is a speaker hidden in a frame. You put the picture you want in it and it’s a hidden—and very effective—Bluetooth speaker.
Other items, like the bespoke range which allows people to customize certain aspects of their products take this a step further.
Honig also explains how her job involves communicating the benefits of Samsung products, with things “that help them make the most of their everyday. Our insights show that energy efficiency is the number one, top reason why people are adopting smart home technology in their homes today. Smartthings, Samsung’s smart home platform, is a great example of how we’re helping customers tackle this basic need: it allows you to connect and control all your smart home appliances in one place and start to keep track of your energy use.”
Honig explains the value of artificial intelligence in such products: If you turn on AI energy mode, it will optimize the particular usage of that device. Before one device wouldn’t have been capable of it but the proof point is you can actually see the results now.”
Sometimes innovation can be daunting, so how does Samsung find the balance between the innovative and the familiar? Heck is clear: “We always have to consider what is a real user benefit. Many devices, including the latest washing machines, for instance, are display-based and in the end, I believe they can be much more useful because they leave out things that you had to be concerned about before. When you understand that this one thing, AI, really facilitates what you try to do and you don’t have a steep learning curve, and then I think it’s better to just let the technology help you.”
And design can be a way of identifying a product—the Galaxy Z Fold6 phone is unmistakably a Samsung, even if the label fell off. So, what is intrinsic to Samsung design?
Heck says, “It could be the most innovative technology from the most human perspective. If you consider these two things together, that summarizes it really well with the user in mind. Of course, we don’t innovate for innovation’s sake. Looking back at the design philosophy that has been guiding us for so many years while recognizing that values of people are shifting, we accept that we need to address this. So, our design directions are adapting, but I think you can always rely on the most innovative technology from the most unique perspective.”
Honig comments on how connectivity has become. Once you’d have one product try to solve so many questions and in doing so it could get away from its primary function, which it needs to do really well. If you can connect the product to others, you can focus on the primary function and know that with some of the other technology people are adopting that secondary scenarios can be solved. Interoperability between products is something that can really help with design.”
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