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Interview with Ce Zhong |
Home > Designer Interviews > Ce Zhong |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Ce Zhong (CZ) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Ce Zhong by clicking here.
FS: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
CZ: My background ranges from mechanical engineering to industrial design and product design. I still remember when I was a middle school student I got my first auto magazine occasionally, the form and mechanical aesthetic of vehicle in that article impressed me a lot. Afterward, dedicating in design for a lifetime stimulates my work up to now. However, the transfer from designer to design researcher is what I am going to do from now on.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
CZ: The everyday design studio, co-directed by Ron Wakkary and William Odom in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University, is a design research studio focusing on exploring interaction design. Our research investigates the changing nature of interaction design in response to the increasing role technology plays in mediating everyday practices like DIY, amateur experts, reminiscence, self exploration, social connection, the making of home life, and so on.In the spirit of design research, we aim to be reflective and generative, uncovering new and emergent practices of design that help shape both design and its relation to technologies. We design new computational things and systems, and study them in the context of people’s everyday lives. We often also develop new methods for better supporting the practice of interaction design research. Our studio prides itself on a strong collaborative culture with a friendly, engaging, and highly creative atmosphere.
FS: What is "design" for you?
CZ: Design for me is a better way to understand how everyday artifacts situated in an environment where people engage with them, and how do these artifacts mediate the way people live in that specific context.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
CZ: My design work ranges from home appliances to medical installation, railway transpiration, and public transportation. I do a lot of research during the process of design, which inspires me a lot to better inquire about some specific questions. As a result, I do better understand what kind of artifact I should design, who will go to live with my created object, and how this kind of designed thing can better stay with people.
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
CZ: Well, next plan should be my favorite design because I will iterate my expertise in real time during the process of design. Challenging myself is a habit I always keep to focusing on my new design project.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
CZ: I still remember when I was a second-year design starter I worked out a humidifier for a design corporation. That was an amazing moment for me to experience the process of design.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
CZ: I often utilize new technology and new material in the new design projects. For instance, what I am going to is design a computational lamp which can be driven by microcontrollers with the application of conductive silicone. The aim of this research project is to investigate how to describe dynamic pattern expression of texture through a design of interactive lamp?
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
CZ: When I am going to project I will meeting a bunch of challenges and problems. The process of dealing with these intractable things make me more productive.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
CZ: I focus not only on what is the affordance of the sematic embody the product, but also investigate on how people interact with the product during process of use.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
CZ: i feel both relax and conentrate. Because I enjoy the process of dealing with challenge problems.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
CZ: I will concern whether the design meets the design rules, what I can improve at this stage.
FS: What makes a design successful?
CZ: I this the user is the best referee to evaluate whether a design is good or not. For a commercial product, we should not only concentrate on the sales volume of one product. but also see how this artifact push forward the development of technology or the lifestyle people live in the world.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
CZ: There are a lot of elements I should concern, such as ergonomics, aesthetics, material use, functions in use, manufacturing and transportation costs, environmental friendly etc. But the most important concern at first is whether this design can be safely use.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
CZ: For a commercial designer, they should persuade themselves to count society and environment in as one of the most important factor they need to achieve during the all process of design.
FS: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
CZ: I think the development of design is accompany with the improvement of people’s life. therefore, as we are going to living in a technology society and community in future, especially the development of artificial intelligence, internet of things, visual reality, and augmented reality, as well as big data etc. the design in the future will intersect with many other subjects, such as computer science, information science, and statistics, etc.
FS: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
CZ: My last exhibition was hold in Taiwan, where I did exchange study and research programs. I hope the next exhibition would be better in euro and North American.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
CZ: I generate my inspirations in my everyday routines which deeply rooted in my everyday life. everything happened around me can be utilized as resources for design. But what is think the most important thing would be think about the connection of each resource and how these connections can I know form it to better deal with a specific problem.
FS: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
CZ: I always use the simplest way to achieve the design result. In the processes of design, I always ask myself how do design the form of an artifact which may sale all over the world? how does the morphology of design can bring meaning during the process of use? All of these questions I will ask in advance when I design a product.
FS: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
CZ: I am living in Vancouver, Canada now. Meet with different cultures help me think more about how does the culture affordance of a design should be? Design culture in a product may help me better understand what kind of experience users may generate when they use the artifact, but I may restrict the sale worldwide.
FS: How do you work with companies?
CZ: I will design for them more than they expected.
FS: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
CZ: First, corporations should provide a breezily environment to designers where folks can stimulate they design and creativity potential. Second, rules and management system should be built to better organize designer community. Third, different development stage companies may hire different level designers with which organizations can achieve their different goals with less budget spend and best human resource utilize.
FS: Can you talk a little about your design process?
CZ: My design process is a dynamic balance between pros and cons.
FS: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
CZ: Everything placed in my house give me inspirations a lot. I enjoy the experience to live with them every day.
FS: Can you describe a day in your life?
CZ: In the morning, I always do read papers or articles which may contribute to my research and design work. In the afternoon, I will do design practice sometimes and teamwork as well. In the night, reading would be the best choice for me and I will have a reflection before sleep.
FS: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
CZ: for a young designer. They should just ‘read’ a lot of design at first, especially classical design in the work. The most important thing is that they should reflect on why these products become classic in the world? why their form designed like this? why they use that kind of material? how can they iterate the design by themselves according the resources they have, e.g. material, manufacturing technique, design skill? and finally, what they should improve to achieve the goal they want.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
CZ: always try to challenge yourself by setting higher goals. Always improve yourself by learning new things, always keep young state of mind whenever you are.
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
CZ: Less but more, and less than more.
FS: What skills are most important for a designer?
CZ: design thinking and design research skill can not only contribute to the design work, but also enrich the mind of designers. To be a reflective designer in everyday life can help the grow of a designer.
FS: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
CZ: I have to read a lot of research papers at first, which is relate the what kind of research what I am going to do. I do conduct design practice a lot by myself and/or work with my lab mates. We use Rhinos, Adobe suites, CNC, laser cutting, and 3D printing for sure.
FS: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
CZ: my work schedule is not stable. I always adjust my time schedule according to dynamic work sessions. But I always work at night because I can concentrate on my working more with peaceful environment.
FS: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
CZ: It all depends, but we always iterate research product over time. if we have renewal research questions we will going to adjust the design to meet the requirement of research. we try to embed knowledge in the research product and generate knowledge from the interaction with computational artifacts.
FS: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
CZ: As a designer, I always ask myself is this edition if the best one that I can do. Are there any other ways that our team can work together to achieve a better result? How can be better improve the design of the computational things.
FS: What was your most important job experience?
CZ: All of my job experiences contribute to what I am doing right now. For instance, I worked as a mechanical engineer, industrial/product designer, design researcher all enriched my mind to have more in-depth insights to better analysis specific questions and cooperate with others.
FS: Who are some of your clients?
CZ: Everyday practitioners with different gender, age, cultural background, etc. would be our participants in our research.
FS: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
CZ: I really enjoy the process of set up a research project. Especially in the process of data collection, I can have an overview of either the data I gathered answer the research question or not? How to figure out the problem and adjust the design or artifact?
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
CZ: My future plan is dedicated in design research for sure. The next and recent thing is finish a research project.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
CZ: yes, I work with a design research team which is named Everyday Design Studio at Simon Fraser University, Canada.
FS: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
CZ: I am working on a research computational lamp by focusing on the dynamic properties of texture. The goal of this research is what is the characteristics of dynamic texture of computational lamp in the context of interaction design and HCI research? How does these qualities can be perceived through the haptic and visual interaction with digital lamp in the environment of everyday residence? I try to use a research through design method to conduct this kind of research.
FS: How can people contact you?
CZ: e-mail: zhongcez@sfu.ca
FS: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
CZ: No.
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A’ Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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