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Interview with Ye Shen |
Home > Designer Interviews > Ye Shen |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Ye Shen (YS) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Ye Shen 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?
YS: Having a poet father and an illustrator mother, my artistic journey started from doodling all over the wall at home. With zero discouragement, my creativity was never caged. At high school, I came to realized that I wanted to practice creativity as my life path, so I searched and attended any program that provides me opportunities and atmosphere. I made my major shift from fine art to design with the appreciation of mass production and the hope that my creation could be used by a mass audience in a daily setting, instead of viewing on gallery walls only.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
YS: I have my corporate practice and personal practice for venting my desire to ideate and make. Officially during the day, I work as a footwear designer in the Sportstyle Department of Puma North America, where we create products with unique lifestyle perspective and comprehensive story-telling experience to push the envelope of this footwear category. Outside of work, I run a few brands that delivers products around the lifestyle I live in, from customized cat furniture, to plant-care accessories, to unofficial university merchandises.
FS: What is "design" for you?
YS: Design is to solve or speak about a "problem", whether it is indeed "problematic" or not. For me personally, design is a unique creative channel through which I create bonds with my users, fellow creatives, and the world.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
YS: I'd like designing products to start a conversation about a subject through my unique perspective, observation or reflection.
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
YS: The Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer. A functionally simplistic yet artistically pleasing piece of furniture made from tubular steel and leather. This design is yielded from Beruer's exploration in the medium and technique of bent metal tubes when they were freshly introduced and just became industrially available.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
YS: An aroma diffuser.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
YS: Fabric and leather, democratic and industrial.
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
YS: During the process of fabrication or while exploring my materials.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
YS: The making. Through playing with mediums and executing ideas, unexpected lessons, new opportunities, unexplored characteristics unfold themselves.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
YS: Anxiety to ideate, pleasure to execute.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
YS: Sense of accomplishment.
FS: What makes a design successful?
YS: When it performs a function or bring an emotion that users have yet to anticipate.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
YS: Whether it has unique and meaningful reasons to exist in this world.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
YS: Humanity, A designer, should understand the struggles, needs and craving of human beings.
FS: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
YS: I believe in the next 5 to 10 years, the emphasis will once again be placed on craft and hand-production.
FS: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
YS: Pre-Covid in the Elms mansion at Newport, RI, USA. I would like to hold my next exhibition in a window display of a corner store in a very busy street of New York.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
YS: It is hard to discuss the term "inspiration" when I practice design as a profession. I tend to feed my living experience to my creativity, and my creativity to my life. Many of my good ideas come from my internal reflections upon strange questions and myths that stuck in my head. I make connections between things I observe and think about, which can spark ideas when these connections become conflicting or juxtaposing.
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?
YS: My approach to design is to not owning a style, but rather explore different medium that are justified by the goal of my statements.
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?
YS: I currently reside in the US. Travelling to different parts of the states, taking parts of different grassroot cultures, brings me new perspectives to investigate different subject matters and trends I see day to day.
FS: How do you work with companies?
YS: I enjoy staying and growing in a team that I feel like I belong to and can contribute to make it better.
FS: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
YS: To truly respect and consider their visions and skills as a creative problem-solver, instead of an employee. Designers tend to like speaking about their work more than themselves, so having conversation around their work can give companies a good sense of what they're dealing with.
FS: Can you talk a little about your design process?
YS: My process differs greatly depending on the subject I tackle. However, all of my design process starts with some sort of subject research that collect detailed notes and data points, and then a mind map to link these points into a pattern to represent how I think.
FS: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
YS: Wassily Chair / Muji Bean bag / Cat trees I built for my cats / OXO peeler / Wok
FS: Can you describe a day in your life?
YS: I have lots of coffee, outwork myself, petting my cats.
FS: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
YS: As much as form follows function, your actions should follow your purpose. Try to be a purposeful designer before you become a good designer.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
YS: Positives: It's a sort of life hack to live by your creativity. Negatives: When creativity is tied to your profession, it can burn out.
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
YS: PROCESS IS KING!
FS: What skills are most important for a designer?
YS: The skill to learn.
FS: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
YS: Any software, hardware and medium that I can employ to realize my concept. Tools can always be learned, but the desire to create is the gem that cannot be lost.
FS: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
YS: I tend to break down a large task into smaller incremental tasks that I can tackle and feel the sense of accomplishment upon finishing each one.
FS: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
YS: As short as an hour to as long as years.
FS: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
YS: When are your shoes coming out?
FS: What was your most important job experience?
YS: It is still confidential at this point.
FS: Who are some of your clients?
YS: Puma, Nike, Clot, LG, Natchmann....
FS: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
YS: I enjoy bridging tradition or industrial techniques with a whimsical and wacky way to approach problem-solving. Through this combination, I get to practice my profession while expressing my personal statements.
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
YS: I hope to become a creative director who can connect resources in every disciplines that I can be creative at.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
YS: Both.
FS: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
YS: I went to school at Rhode Island School of Design, which as a design school, doesn't offer very creative merchandises in my opinion. So I'm working on my own unofficial school-merch brand that celebrates the energy around the establishment.
FS: How can people contact you?
YS: 2collegest@gmail.com
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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