DESIGNER VIEW Leading by
DESIGNER VIEW Leading by Focused Design A close-up on key trends in TV design – today and for the future © Philips TV ROD WHITE Global Chief Designer, Philips TV OLED NATURALLY FILLS THE ROLE OF OUR LEADING PREMIUM RANGES What are the most important trends in TV design at the moment? We put the question to a man with his finger qwell and truly on the pulse of the sector, Rod White, Philips TV’s Global Chief Designer. What we see selling on the high street currently, is largely coming from trends which emerged a few years ago. Back then, society in general was experiencing the shift from a state of recession to one of a more optimistic consumer behaviour, whilst being mindful of not being overly wasteful or flippant. This led to a need for designs which communicate quality and traditional craftsmanship. The rise of slim framed, wellengineered metal tables and chairs come from that trend. Coupled with a more poetic, almost nostalgic use of color, such as the currently trending coral pinks, and more traditional material choices of glass, wood and marble. These are today’s context of the living room, into which we need to bring fresh TV designs that can complement the home, whilst not overpowering it. Can you talk about the new Philips TV positioning of European Design and Ambilight? This year we confirmed our Philips TV positioning as ‘European Design and Ambilight’; with that we have committed to equip more of the range with Ambilight than ever before and to focus on 3x sided Ambilight solutions to heighten the viewing experience. As the average screen size increases and the bezel width is largely disappearing the benefit of that 3x Ambilight becomes visibly more intense. Our key challenge as designers is to apply that Ambilight solution in a way to have optimum light performance whilst being fully integrated into the extremely slim OLED and LED TV back covers. Launched after IFA 2016, how are the sales of Philips OLED TVs? OLED naturally fills the role of our leading premium ranges, and as such we plan sales volumes accordingly. The Philips 901F shown last year at IFA and our 9002 OLED launched earlier this year have been met by the market with a fantastic response, consistently great product reviews and our sales are highly positive. What are consumers looking for from a design perspective in OLED? Besides the incredible picture coming from an OLED the obvious benefit from a design perspective are the dimensions. With a basically edgeless bezel and thickness less than 5mm, the expectation of OLED consumers, and task of the designer, is to heighten the impression of slimness, lightness and top performance in order to assure them they are buying at the cutting edge. How does the Philips TV design team work? Our design team is based in Amsterdam where we set the design directions for Philips TV, Monitors and Mobile Displays; we also have studios in Taipei and Shenzhen where we are much closer to the industry trends and leading suppliers. We have a holistic approach to all consumer products regarding product design but also across all the different touchpoints where consumers experience the brand, such as on-screen user experience, in-store Philips TV presence and online communication. Panels drive the TV industry and societal trends drive consumer behavior – it’s our job as a design team to apply the best suited technology in designs that fit with interior trends and ultimately excite our consumers. Can you give us a snapshot about work the team is currently working on? We recently finished our trends research work looking out towards 2019 in context of lifestyle and aesthetic shifts that will influence consumer tastes. From here we conceptualise how we meet those changing expectations cross product categories in new uses of form, material, colour and identifying possible new product value spaces HALL 22 / STAND 101 www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Friday 1 st September 2017 57
