The preform design in metal forging plays a key role in improving product quality, such as ensuring defect-free property and proper metal flow. In industry, preforms are generally designed by the iterative trial-and-error approach, but this approach leads not only to significant tool cost but also to the down-time of the production equipment. It is thus necessary to reduce the time and the man-power through an effective method of perform design. In this paper, the equi-potential lines designed in the electric field are introduced to find the preform shape. The equi-potential lines obtained by the arrangement of the initial and final shapes are utilized for the design of the preform, and then applied for obtaining a fine preform in the foging process of the ball-joint socket.