As an original research topic in the design field of China, the red design gene research aims to clarify the development history of red design, explore the historical and cultural resources of red design, gain insight into the generation mechanism and social action mechanism of red design, and then extract the local resources of creative transformation and innovative development of contemporary design in China, which has high artistic value. For design research, the red design gene research can not only fill the gaps in the previous research of Chinese design history, but also provide an important theoretical basis for building a discourse system of design art with Chinese characteristics, style and manner. The red design gene research needs to combine the research methods of philology, field investigation, oral history to carry out systematic theoretical construction.