Every time a business hits it big — in this case, Samsung with its steady line of state-of-the-art phones and tablets — some intrepid reporter feels the need to explain that a significant portion of its success is attributable to the company’s organizational structure, its ethos, or the number of complimentary amenities available at the headquarter’s on-site gym. The latest exemplar of this approach:

Designers of the Galaxy S III say they drew inspiration from trips to Cambodia and Helsinki, a Salvador Dalí art exhibit and even a balloon ride in an African forest. (It employs 1,000 designers with different backgrounds like psychology, sociology, economy management and engineering.)

“The research process is unimaginable,” said Donghoon Chang, an executive vice president of Samsung who leads the company’s design efforts. “We go through all avenues to make sure we read the trends correctly.” He says that when the company researches markets for any particular product, it is also looking at trends in fashion, automobiles and interior design.

Hangil Song, a Samsung product designer, described a visit to the Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore, where he said he was amazed by the views of the sky, the cityscape and the water. He wanted to create an effect where water was overflowing from the screen. As a result, taps and swipes on the Galaxy S III’s phone screen create a unique ripple effect.

That’s quite the overhead for a CPU-intensive transition visual.