The form design of products plays a pivotal role in shaping consumers’ purchase decisions, with its attractiveness influenced by the arrangement of visual design elements. According to industrial designers’ structural knowledge is very crucial for form design. Their understanding of doing this work is based upon their experience so there is a need to refine the unstructured knowledge of visual elements. This study addresses this challenge by introducing a foundational knowledge framework for form design, facilitated by an ontology-based approach. Utilizing the Ontology Web Language (OWL), the present work constructed an explicit knowledge aimed at capturing the intricate relationships and properties of visual design elements pertinent to form design. To alleviate the hurdles faced by designers, particularly novices, during the concept generation phase, a knowledge base is built by the development of an ontology to enhance decision-making processes and streamline the design workflow. Our research focuses on the application of aesthetic design principles within the context of form design, offering valuable insights and strategies for designers. By leveraging the explicit knowledge encoded in the ontology, designers can navigate the complexities of arranging visual elements more effectively, resulting in enhanced product aesthetics and consumer appeal. The present work used Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) to infer the complex relationship across the critical form design concepts further Semantic Query-Enhanced Web Rule Language (SQWRL) showed the desired result in form of design guidelines. To validate the efficacy of our approach, a case study was developed which focused on the design of the product.