Taipei, Thursday, December 11, 2014 - ASIATODAY.COM - Taiwan’s leading knowledge sharing platform, TEDxTaipei, and the Golden Pin Design Award, Taiwan’s premier international design award, today held TEDxTaipei Salon: Design Transformed. The audience, which consisted predominantly of academics, designers, and design enthusiasts, sat enthralled by innovative ideas, case studies, and even calls-to-action themed around collaboration between different disciplines and industries, and a deeper integration and appreciation of both global and local culture and traditional knowledge.
In an emotionally-charged talk in which he urged audience members to think about "how we can [design] better from a social and sustainability point of view," Magnus Aspegren, Director of BMW Group DesignworksUSA in Shanghai, who opened Session I: Design for Future Chinese, emphasized the importance of building experience into a product: "Rather than focus on shape, proportions, and materiality, we should also think about the relationship these products can build with the user." Marisa Santamaria, Director of the International Trend Unit at Istituto Europeo di Design, noted that while design is not valued highly in China, there is institutional awareness of the importance of design in society. "A designer is a very important agent in society, an agent for change."
Franz Chen, Founder and CEO of Franz Collection, advised Chinese designers to look back at their traditions and their heritage and integrate these with modern lifestyles, and urged the region's companies to consider their spiritual side. "Companies in the Chinese world need to take industries and 'culturalize' them to allow designers to not just design, but to also have an affinity with the product they are designing." Ray Chen, Founder of Ray Chen International and Ray Chen + Partners Architects, introduced attendees to his recently launched design for China Airlines 777-300ER airliners. The innovative design takes primary inspiration from China's Song Dynasty, as well as introducing passengers to a "taste of Taiwan" through serving-ware, packing design, and food and beverage choices, and explores the question of how to interpret Chinese and Taiwanese culture in a way that combines the modern and the traditional.
A strong theme of collaboration ran through Session II: Design x Entrepreneurship. Jung-Ya Hsieh, Founder of innovative, award-winning Taiwanese design studio, GIXIA Group, opened the session with a call to action for Taiwan's business community to "upgrade their view of design by encouraging cross-industry collaboration. "You cannot keep yourself alive on design alone," he advised designers. For Seeed Studio founder Eric Pan, who is a driving force in the global "makers movement", designers need to work together with engineers to ensure great ideas become a reality. Engineers have the know how, he said, but they need ideas from designers.
"When you create a product that you'll be sharing with the world, you need to think about what will go into it," said George Arriola, Founder and COO of Monohm Inc. His company focuses new product generation around three key concepts: "sustainable,""heirloom," and "heritage," and he urged today's designers to consider these concepts in their own design practice. Think about the sustainability, holistic nature, and longevity of what you produce, he said. In the Salon's final talk, Tzu-Hsien Tung, Chairman of leading Taiwan-based technology company, Pegatron, advised that designers not be so immersed in the mainstream. "There may be a lot of creativity and energy in the peripheral areas, and you and I can tap into that," he said.
Talks took place in two sessions–named Session I: Design for Future Chinese and Session II: Design x Entrepreneurship–with four 18-minute talks and a 40-minute-long panel discussion in each session. Eric Chuang–Managing Director of Chenco Holding Company, a US-based venture investment company with branch operations in the USA, China, and Taiwan, was the moderator for the Session I panel discussion, and Jordan Chao-Tung Wen–Professor, Graduate Institute of Technology, Innovation and Intellectual Property Management, National Cheng-chi University, moderated the panel discussion for Session II. FOCA, a Taiwan-based dance troupe, opened the event with a six-minute-long performance that featured Golden Pin Design Award-winning chairs.
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About TEDxTaipei
TEDxTaipei is part of a global movement of TEDx events that has sprung up in more than 100 cities since 2009. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share ideas worth spreading under the TED license. At TEDxTaipei we intend to share stories that inspire creativity, stimulate imagination, and provoke knowledge across the Chinese-speaking regions.
About the Golden Pin Design Award
This year, for the first time in its 33-year history, the Golden Pin Design Award opened its doors to companies designing products and projects in and for the huaren (Chinese-speaking) market. In June 2014, a record number of entries were received from across the world in four award categories: Product Design, Visual Communication Design, Packaging Design, and Interior Design. Golden Pin Design Award “Best Design” winners, who were selected from over 400 finalists, will be announced in an award ceremony held in Taipei, Taiwan on December 11, 2014. The Golden Pin Design Award Exhibition, a free, open-to-the-public display of this year’s Golden Pin Design Award winning products, will be held at the Taiwan Design Museum in Taipei’s Songshan Creative and Cultural Park from December 11, 2014 to March 1, 2015.
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