Color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

Material Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologi ...

s, Finish (CMF) is an area of

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

that focuses on the chromatic, tactile and decorative identity of products and environments.

Characteristics

CMF design uses

metadesign Metadesign (or meta-design) is an emerging conceptual framework aimed at defining and creating social, economic and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. It consists of a series of practical design-r ...

logic, the simultaneous planning of the identity of entire ranges of products for a given

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

. This makes it possible, for example, to adopt a single

color matrix YCbCr, Y′CbCr, or Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr, also written as YCBCR or Y′CBCR, is a family of color spaces used as a part of the color image pipeline in video and digital photography systems. Y′ is the luma component and CB and CR are the blue-diffe ...

, instead of using a series of separate and different

color card Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

s for each line of products, as previously done. A contribution to the development of this approach to design was the impetus provided by the proliferation in the 1980s of complete ranges of new

systemic products Systemic fundamental to a predominant social, economic, or political practice. This refers to: In medicine In medicine, ''systemic'' means affecting the whole body, or at least multiple organ systems. It is in contrast with ''topical'' or ''loc ...

. Brand products are often thought up by different designers who through the use of ad-hoc CMF design manuals can work together to ensure a unique but coordinated identity for the products. This working process is advantageous in terms of the choice of color base for systemic products that are either of heterogeneous origin or are considered

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

products. The latter, even if characterized by different forms, can be connoted with the base colors or materials that are representative of the brand due to CMF design. Since CMF design manuals and the color matrix have a prescriptive role, the designers who create them are rarely involved in the applicative distribution either of colors, materials or finishes of individual products.

Bibliography

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References

{{Design Industrial design