What are the characteristics and representatives of modern American design?

The United States is the first country to enter the information age and the most developed country in information technology. No matter in computer hardware and software, or in the application of computer technology, it is in a leading position in the world. In particular, the popularity of the Internet has brought American society into a new era dominated by the information industry. Under the new economic and cultural background, great changes have taken place in American industrial design since the late 1980s. At the same time, the American design pioneer represented by Lowe has passed away. Although some design companies named after them still exist, the positions of these masters have been replaced by a number of new independent design companies. These new design firms are quite different from the traditional explicit firms in knowledge structure, service field and design means. Because they firmly grasp the pulse of the information age, their design business has expanded rapidly and established a good reputation in the industry. They are called a new generation of heroes of American industry by American Business Week. These new design consulting companies are named after the word "design" instead of famous designers, emphasizing that design is a team activity rather than an individual work, such as Smart Design in new york, Design Logic in Chicago and Lunar Design in California. In many cases, the directors of these companies are first-generation or second-generation European immigrants, and the famous Forgdesign was originally a German company. These new generation designers have brought more European ideas to the United States, thus closely combining the advanced technology of the United States with the profound historical and cultural traditions of Europe, and making American design have a big leap in the information age. This situation is particularly prominent in California, especially in Silicon Valley, on the one hand, because many Europeans have settled here, and on the other hand, because the emerging high-tech industry here has little connection with the American design predecessors in the previous machine age. Here, many new design companies have been serving high-tech companies such as Apple. Different from the traditional industrial design affairs, which mainly provide the appearance design of industrial products, new design companies can provide more comprehensive services for enterprises. They can not only provide product appearance design and engineering design, but also provide services such as market research, consumer survey, ergonomics research, public relations planning and even corporate website design and maintenance, and have the ability of global activities. In fact, some new design companies have established global service networks to cope with the trend of world economic globalization. This change of industrial design reflects the change of enterprise management. In the future, more and more enterprises will reduce their internal research institutions and adopt social cooperation, which will not only reduce their expenses, but also seek wider cooperation in professional resources in society. In addition, many enterprises regard design as a strategic management means to improve their professional quality and stimulate creativity, instead of limiting design to the development activities of a single product, thus greatly expanding the application scope of industrial design. As enterprises put forward a wider demand for design, the personnel composition of design companies is not limited to designers, but the cooperation of multiple professionals. In addition, due to the wide application of computer-aided design, the design methods of design companies have also undergone revolutionary changes. SGI(Silicon Graphic) graphic workstation and design software such as Alias and Pro-Designer make industrial design more flexible and fast, and industrial design itself is therefore high-tech. Another major change in American industrial design in the 1990s was that high-tech products, including computers, modern office equipment, medical equipment and communication equipment, became the main fields of industrial design. Industrial design plays an important role in the process of humanization and commercialization of high technology. With the efforts of designers, the once formidable high technology has become an indispensable partner in people's daily work and life. ZIBA Design Company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, USA, is considered as one of the best design companies in the world. Chiba's design concept is to win with simplicity, emphasizing the human-machine characteristics of products, so the company's product design pays great attention to the handling of details, "God lies in details." At the same time, Chiba also pursues the interest and harmony of design, and makes products pleasant and humorous through color, modeling, details and graphic design, so as to achieve the effect of appealing to both refined and popular tastes. In recent years, Chiba has cooperated with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Intel and other companies to design many excellent products. Among them, the "natural" curve keyboard developed by the company for Microsoft is welcomed by users because of its convenient use, comfortable man-machine interface and novel and unique shape. Chiba also designed a large number of high-tech medical equipment. Most of these products are designed in a simple and bright shape, which is convenient for operation and cleaning, and makes the complicated and daunting medical process as simple as possible. The hemodialysis machine designed by Chiba replaces complex control keys and switches with a simple and clear touch screen, and is equipped with automatic control software, so that medical staff can operate it conveniently and freely. In addition, due to the modular design, it can be easily disassembled and assembled, which is conducive to providing on-site services. Generally speaking, American information technology is more advanced than Europe, but in some fields, such as digital communication technology, European countries have their own unique advantages. As far as industrial design is concerned, European countries also have their own unique advantages. Just as the European modernist design thought represented by Bauhaus deeply influenced the American design circle in the 1940s, today's European design also has an important influence on the American design circle, especially on the design of high-tech products.