A Study on the Relationship Between Form Features and Images of Concept Bicycles Using the Theory of Archetype.

Two-wheel electric vehicles have gradually attracted people’s attentions in recent years, thus more designers focus on styling designs to satisfy consumers’ psychological demands. A product need to satisfy consumers’ expectation with not only nice appearance and functions, but also a good image. A product with its definite image can create its segment in the marketplace. This study applies the archetype theory in product form design, and takes the concept bicycle as a case study. The classification of morphological features is carried out by a great deal of concept bicycle images. Then 60 samples made according the morphological chart are used for image evaluation. Finally, the relationship between form features and image perceptions is built by back-propagation artificial Neural Network (NN). According to the results, the pattern of the Innocent archetype has a similar condition as the Jester archetype. Both of them correspond to the styling with a strong sense of volume and perfectly round form. For the Explorer archetype, the riding posture has a large effect on subjects’ image perceptions. Meanwhile, the handlebar and drive system have enormous effects on image perceptions as well. The image perceptions of the Sage, Outlaw, Lover, and Ruler archetypes are conducted to be different by colors, materials, and curved surfaces on the image cognition map. But, those three factors above cannot be recognized by the samples drawn in gray. Moreover, the form features for each archetype have been carried out. These would be useful for the designs of concept bicycle.