Placemaking with Creation: A Case Study in Cultural Product Design

Urban development is often a priority policy measure for national governments, leading to shocks such as demographic dissimilarity and imbalances in urban-rural development. Humanity is now facing undeniable challenges that extend to localities, societies, and ways of life. Taking a small mountain village as its case study, this study investigates how to discover and mobilize local cultural resources while using cultural added-value design innovation to create qualia products and captivating experiences. Our results show that the design, development, and promotion of local cultural products has huge potential in stimulating visits from non-locals, re-attracting former residents, and turning intermediary towns into flourishing examples of the aesthetic economy. In this light, the questions of how to integrate the lifestyle of local residents, how to conduct fieldwork surveys and data collection, how to investigate models for the recognition and communication of cultural codes, and how to develop methods of extraction and frameworks of analysis for cultural factors, thereby providing modes of translation for cultural product design, are all well worthy of closer examination. This study is of important practical value for increasingly marginalized communities that are promoting regional revitalization in terms of placemaking. By developing unique local design and shaping the aesthetics and individuality of local brands, we can facilitate both cultural communication and sustainable innovation in the face of neoliberalistic global competition, thereby achieving the shared ideal of innovative transformation.