Applying Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) to contemporary product design has emerged as an important research topic in the field of cultural product design. Among various forms of Chinese ICH, paper-cutting possesses rich cultural symbolism and ...
Applying Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) to contemporary product design has emerged as an important research topic in the field of cultural product design. Among various forms of Chinese ICH, paper-cutting possesses rich cultural symbolism and distinctive visual characteristics, making it highly applicable to cultural product development. However, existing design practices often face limitations such as unclear communication of cultural meaning and the absence of systematic criteria for organizing and prioritizing design factors.
This study proposes a research framework that integrates the extraction of design factors, the construction of evaluation indicators, importance analysis, and practical design application for ICH paper-cutting cultural products. Based on literature reviews and case analyses, design factors were identified and categorized into several dimensions, including cultural narrative and information representation, visual imagery and formative language, and user perception and emotional experience. Subsequently, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to establish an evaluation indicator system, and the relative importance of each design factor was analyzed through expert evaluation and consistency verification.
Furthermore, this study does not merely present AHP results as evaluative outcomes, but attempts to translate them into practical design strategies. To achieve this, the paper-cutting image of “Jianhua Niangzi (剪花娘子)” was adopted as a design prototype, and the derived importance results were reflected in visual hierarchy, symbolic expression, color composition, pattern application, and product form development. A small-scale user evaluation was then conducted to examine the relationship between the AHP analysis results and user perceptions.
The findings indicate that the clear communication of cultural meaning and visual recognizability are critical factors in the design of ICH paper-cutting cultural products. In addition, users’ emotional experience and product commercialization potential were also found to influence design completeness and acceptance. The framework proposed in this study is academically and practically meaningful in that it enables the systematic identification of design priorities and their application to actual design development processes. In particular, the study provides practical references for balancing cultural identity, visual appeal, and user experience in cultural product design based on regional intangible cultural heritage.