Keywords

1 Introduction

As the modern industrialization develops rapidly, the traditional handicrafts are replaced by machines, and the transition of the modern way of life, the production diversity, the spread diversity, the sales diversity and consumption form, etc. result in the decrease of the desire for traditional handicraft industry. The traditional craftsmanship of Yongchun lacquer basket in Fujian, as a very important factor of the cultural assets and created 500 years ago, is facing the inheritance fault and the loss of valuable traditional craftsmanship and ethnic cultural heritage. In order to protect the intangible cultural heritage, the protection method for the traditional craftsmanship of intangible cultural heritage is getting more and more attention. This study takes traditional Yongchun lacquer basket in Fujian as an example, aiming to analyze the development dilemma and error of the local traditional craftsmanship, explore the mechanism of using service design to promote the development of traditional handcraft industry, and measure the success of the sustainable development of service design as the guide, thus the enlightenment for the sustainable development of traditional craftsmanship is concluded.

2 Status Quo of Lacquer Basket

2.1 History of Yongchun Lacquer Basket

Yongchun lacquer basket is the famous traditional bamboo basket arts and crafts is in Fujian province, created in the period of Mingde between 1506–1506. According to the records of “Yongchun Motto”, lacquer basket has 500 years’ history, and more than 100 kinds of varieties; it is widely used for folk ancestor worship, marriage basket or god greeting and ancestor worship, etc. [1]. Since Fujian Minnan culture is prevalent, lacquer basket is mainly concentrated in Quanzhou, Shishi and Yongchun. The producing area of lacquer basket in Yongchun is located in Longshui village, Xianjia town, Yongchun County, Quanzhou city, Fujian province, which is the main base and root of producing lacquer basket. Because of the place name, it is known as Longshui lacquer basket, and very popular in Minnan area in which culture and folk activities are quite prevalent; moreover, it is exported to Southeast Asia and other regions with Chinese people. A poem circulated in one hundred year says, “Hands flutter with dance, warp and weft are into the drawing. Bamboo basket carries water without leakage, small to hide the needle and large to be as cabinet”. What is mentioned in the poem is the lacquer basket in Longshui Village. “Longshui lacquer basket” has been included in Quanzhou non-material cultural heritage, and officially listed in Fujian intangible cultural heritage list in June, 2009. Yongchun government, jointly with local residents, declared the national intangible cultural heritage [2] (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
figure 1

(data source: photo by the author)

Yongchun Longshui lacquer basket (Color figure online)

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2.2 Craftsmanship of Yongchun Lacquer Basket

The largest diameter of traditional lacquer basket is half a meter, and the smallest one is only three centimeters. The color is bright red, black and gold, which symbolizes auspiciousness, richness and honor. It is one of the commonly used things in Minnan people’s home. Since there are Minnan people that have immigrated to Southeast Asia, the tradition of using lacquer baske thas gradually formed in Southeast Asia. According to the records of Yongchun Motto: “in the period of Mingzhengde (1506–1522), the painters in Longshui put the traditional product of bamboo basket and bamboo plate embryo into lime water for boiling, wiped them and put tung oil ash, and then it was tabled with grass cloth, coated with raw painting, to make lacquer basket, which is durable; after then, it was improved gradually. On handle, cover, and body of the basket, the decorative patterns or designs were added; after 30 working procedures, it turned into valuable lacquer basket.” The craftsmanship of Yongchun lacquer basket is quite complicated, with 5 types of working including making basket embryos (bamboo weaving), ash basket, painting, drawing and carving, and 33 procedures, as follows: 1. making basket embryos (bamboo weaving). 2. Adding putty. 3. Painting and carving [3].

2.3 Development Dilemma of Yongchun Lacquer Basket Industry

With the high-degree urbanization and the rapid development of science and technology, the traditional craftsmanship of lacquer basket is facing the unprecedented challenges. Due to the change of modern lifestyle, the problems, for example, the demand for the traditional lacquer basket demand dramatically decreases traditional craftsmanship inheritance suffers from fault, the population outflow appears and the business model cannot keep pace with the times, have impact on the intangible cultural heritage with 500 years’ history. First, the inheritance of the traditional craftsmanship of lacquer basket is the most serious problem now. The aging of traditional craftsmen in Longshui is very serious; due to the complexity of the production process and the large length, most of the local young people are unwilling to inherit the traditional lacquer basket craftsmanship. With the development of the modern city and the demise of the traditional handicraft industry, the younger generation is away from Longshui due to study or work, with the smaller possibility of engaging in traditional basket craftsmanship. “There are more than 1000 people in Longshui village; the number of existing practitioners is less than 200, and most of them are engaged in basket retail personally; there are more than 20 people taking a part-time job in the company. There is a lack of the people who can complete all processes of lacquer basket alone.” Guo Zhihuang describes the status quo. According to statistics, currently, there are 128 lacquer basket professionals in the village, and according to the type of work, there are 81 bamboo weavers, 33 putty people, 14 lacquer painters; according to gender, there are 69 men and 59 women [4]. In terms of age, the age for the main practitioners of lacquer basket are above 40 years old, many of which are in high age stage, and there are only 6 people under the age of 40, but only 6 people can only make bamboo weaving but cannot make putty and painting. There is no practitioner under the age of 30. That is to say, in Longshui Village that is the production base of lacquer basket, the villagers under the age of 40, have been unable to jointly create a complete lacquer basket.

3 Value Analysis of Traditional Yongchun Lacquer Basket with Service Design as Orientation

3.1 Definition of Service Design

Service design is the most important tool for the service design put forward by G. Lynn Shostack in “European Journal of Marketing” and “Harvard Business Review” — the concept of Service Blueprint applied in marketing management. Based on the definition of British design association, service design simply refers to providing users with the overall experience of design, and your products and services for customers are “more useful, usable, favorable to use, and more convenient, more efficient, and more valuable [5].” Design consultant LIVE | WORK said, “Service design is to use the mature design process and technology to develop the service. It is a kind of innovative and actual way to improve existing services and innovative service [6].” INPD is the product development approach with service design as orientation, composed of four steps, identifying opportunity, understanding opportunity, transforming opportunity into product concept, realizing opportunity. It is the premise of clarify the fuzzy product development process [7] (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
figure 2

(adapted from Cagan and Vogel (2004))

Four_phase product development process

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3.2 Identifying the Product Opportunity Gap Through SET Factor Analysis

Through the existing research of traditional handicraft industry of Yongchun lacquer basket, the SET (Social-Economic-Technology) of service design factor analysis method is used to seek culture value system of the industry, respectively from social, economic and technological aspects [7]. Through the collection of existing results and literature historical data excavation and arrangement, the method of service design and process in the early stage is applied, with the field survey and the qualitative and quantitative research, it mainly focuses on the protection and development of traditional industry of Yongchun lacquer basket to discuss.

The analysis of the social, economic and technical factors can produce product opportunity of traditional lacquer basket handcraft; by the application of the tools of service design as orientation, finding its industry’s opportunity gap eventually is transformed into value opportunity. Our goal is to recognize the new trend and to find a matching consumer group and product demand through the analysis of social, economic, and technological factors, and then based on customer needs and expectations of reasonable product or service in organic integration, it aims to develop its new products or services to protect the inheritance and sustainable development of traditional Yongchun lacquer basket handicraft industry.

3.3 Analysis of VOA Value Opportunity Based on Ethnography

Based VOA (value opportunity analysis) of ethnography, it is the key tool for the second stage–“understanding opportunity” of INPD procedure with service design as orientation, and its purpose is to use qualitative research to clarify product value opportunity after “identifying opportunity” in the first stage. Value can be understood as the product attributes to make the product available, usable, and favorable to have. It is these attributes that make function characteristics and value connected to produce VO (value opportunity), which is made up of seven types of value: emotion, ergonomics, aesthetics, characteristics, influence, core technology and quality. Attributes of the first value opportunity “emotion” contain adventure, independence, security, sensibility, confidence and strength. Attributes of the second value opportunity “ergonomics” attributes contain comfort, security, easy use. Attributes of the third value opportunity “aesthetics” contain sight, hear, touch, smell, taste. Attributes of the fourth value opportunity “characteristics” contain timing, comfortable, individual character. Attributes of the fifth value opportunity “influence” contain social influence and environmental impact. Attributes of the sixth value opportunity “core technology” contain reliability and availability. Attributes of the seventh value opportunity “quality” contain process and durability [7] (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
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VOA of lacquered basket

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From the analysis of value opportunity, the traditional lacquer basket has smaller numerical value in adventure and safety of emotion, as well as in ergonomics; the most obvious one is that the numerical value is significantly smaller in interest effect, brand effect and extensibility; its advantage mainly lies in aesthetics and quality. From the previous SET analysis, it can be concluded that the advantage of traditional lacquer basket is the reflection of its aesthetic and cultural value, and the disadvantage lies in a series of problems with vicious cycle caused by the demand reduce.

4 Innovative Practice of Bamboo Furniture

4.1 Development of INPD Bamboo Furniture with Service Design as Orientation

According to the definition made by UNESCO, “cultural industry” refers to a series of activities in accordance with the industry standard production, reproduction, storage, and distribution of cultural products and services. “Culture” in cultural industry contains the way of life and its economic properties, so one of the most important links for the research on the protection of the cultural industry, and the inheritance of traditional craftsmanship is the study of culture as well as group culture. Cultural value is transformed into commercial value through the innovation of the traditional industries, cultural value and economic value are realized through the product design and service innovation. So, after three years’ uninterrupted participatory observation, the author made the local government departments, designers, traditional lacquer basket technicians, design companies and college students majoring in design common basket of traditional industries to jointly attend the lacquer basket products innovation design, and imported INPD based on service design as orientation.

The first stage: the product opportunity identification and selection. In the SET analysis of traditional lacquer basket, the research team used informal interview and qualitative research with qualitative research maintenance as priority to summarize three opportunity gaps: 1. through the experience of economy orientation, it makes Yongchun Longshui lacquer basket factory into a sightseeing factory, with sales and experience of weaving technique. 2. Culture creative product design and production. 3. Fineness of traditional Yongchun lacquer basket weaving and furniture and household products market development. The second stage: product opportunity understanding. In value analysis table, we can conclude the importance of user’s demand lies in the industry interest’s value opportunity; it is important for the storage and development of the traditional lacquer basket handicraft to make the breakthrough innovation. The third stage: transforming the opportunity into product concept. In the process of the conceptual design of bamboo furniture, designers and traditional lacquer basket technicians jointly produced many preliminary conceptual models, and during this stage, all personnel have a very clear concept on product technology, craft limitation and product modeling (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.
figure 4

(data source: photo by the author)

Bamboo furniture model manufacture

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The fourth stage: transforming concept into the implementation stage of the model opportunity. The details of a large number of bamboo furniture should be weighted, so that designers and traditional basket technicians together made the products, verified the rationality of furniture modeling and compiling. The market department clarified the market demand and user positioning, began to make production plan and the preliminary market strategy, including product’s budget and promotion plan (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.
figure 5

(made by the author)

Budget and promotion plan for bamboo furniture

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5 Conclusion

The intangible cultural heritage of traditional handicraft industry is very precious cultural assets, and it not only shows the local culture, life and production history, but also is one of the important characteristics of a country’s historical process of modernization. With the evolution of socialization, as well as the influence of way of life and national policy, the traditional handicraft industry gradually tends to face the fate of production suspension and the missing inheritance people. Traditional handicraft industry’s protection method is taken seriously day by day, with the purpose to protect the intangible cultural heritage and find out its system of cultural value and economic value. This study takes traditional Yongchun lacquer basket in Fujian as an example, aiming to analyze the development difficulty of the local traditional handicraft industry, explore the mechanism to promote the traditional handcraft industry by service design, measure the success of the sustainable development with service design as guide. Field research and analysis of the development of handicraft industry history and the production process of Yongchun lacquer baskets was conducted. Through SET (society, economy, technology), it analyzed opportunity gap of the development of traditional handicraft industry of Yongchun lacquer baskets. Then, VOA (value opportunity analysis) was applied to explore and evaluate the attribute of the new product opportunities. INPD with service design as orientation was used as our intangible cultural heritage protection and development process framework. The implications for the sustainable development of the traditional craftsmanship were concluded, as the basis to deeply research, store and reuse traditional handicraft industry innovation and development.