Green Fields Sprout Creative Designs

Deep in the heart of Yun­lin, ensconced among the green rice paddies, is a traditional contract manufacturer (run by Cheng’s family) that produces bodybuilding equipment. Right next door, however, one finds a sleek new design firm by the name of IDW. It was founded by Wayne Cheng, who spent three months and NT$10 million remodeling factory property into a transparent office space. At one end of the office is a whiteboard covered with hastily sketched design concepts. This is where Cheng lets his creative imagination run wild.

Wayne Cheng and his local partners are working hand in hand to spur each other’s imaginations. They’ve designed retro-look speakers in the likeness of a phonograph, mobile phone mounts, tablet computer cases and a host of other unusual products to attract customers.

Watching on from a young age as his father toiled fiercely away running his contract manufacturing operations, young Wayne was always thinking that someday he’d like to help his family get into some other line of business.

Born in 1981, Wayne graduated from Soo­chow University with a degree in political science, and had originally thought he’d get involved in politics, but his career path took an unexpected turn that eventually led to him study industrial design in Australia at the University of Newcastle.

After returning from abroad, he got a job in central Taiwan at a trading company that specialized in importing dune buggies and bodybuilding equipment. His employer was wanting to create a new brand, which afforded Wayne a chance to develop related skills.

On joining the company, Wayne was assigned the task of industrial design and came up with the Holo­Magic brand of mobile phone peripherals. But the company was short on brand management experience, and set prices so high that sales never took off. Inventory piled up, and the brand failed in the end, but Wayne had absolutely no regrets.

Seven months later, he decided to go back to Yun­lin and establish IDW. After six months of effort he had developed the Trum­stand, a speaker designed in the likeness of a phono­graph that employs Bluetooth technology to serve as an iPhone speaker dock.

In order to get the design done, he made a special trip to the Xin­she area of Taichung to find one of the last remaining saxophone makers in Taiwan and commission him to handcraft a phonograph shell.

Measuring 80 centimeters high and available in either a gold or silver finish, the phonograph features a retro look that contrasts fascinatingly with the Bluetooth technology contained inside. The design quickly garnered a great deal of interest within international design circles. Gentlemen’s Quarterly UK and many other media organizations have been to Yun­lin to interview Cheng.

Being handmade in very small quantity, the product is quite expensive at roughly NT$30,000. Cheng regards it as the key to his company’s marketing efforts because when IDW was first founded and little known, something distinctive was needed to attract attention. Only then would people start noticing IDW’s other products.

It was during this same time period that IDW launched the Supermount F, which enables people to mount mobile phones to a camera tripod for taking photos.

This simple and widely useful design has become IDW’s hottest product, with 100,000 sold to date. In order to make inroads into international markets, Cheng often sets up booths at overseas trade shows, where foreign customers frequently stop to make inquiries. A Japanese agent once exclaimed “perfect” and made an order on the spot worth more than NT$2 million.

Now that he’s established an international presence, Cheng is planning to take active steps to develop both domestic and international marketing channels. After sinking almost NT$20 million into the business over the past two years, he is beginning to make a return on his investment.

Today, Cheng’s design team has grown from one person to five, with a corresponding explosion in design capacity. The company has now launched over 30 different design products.

Mobile phone peripherals are mostly bought by young consumers, so IDW has to keep rolling out new products to keep up with quickly evolving mobile phones. Production cycles are short, and products go out of style very fast. Cheng makes sure to get his hands on mobile phone specs three months before they hit the market so he can get started on design work as soon as possible.

Quickly turning out a wide range of designs has emerged as IDW’s biggest single challenge, so the company tries to hook up with firms in nearby Yunlin and Changhua to provide contract manufacturing and assembly services. For some products with especially complex manufacturing processes and exacting quality requirements, however, Cheng turns to the family firm to provide the equipment and personnel needed for flexible manufacturing.

One of the most difficult things to deal with is disagreements among generations. His quest to create a brand has led Cheng into occasional conflict with his father, who has done business for more than 30 years as a contract manufacturer. Cheng explains: “A contract manufacturer just produces exactly the quantities that are ordered, and runs no inventory risk.”

Pricing strategies, for example, have been a bone of contention. Cheng’s father puts top priority on covering costs, but Cheng has focused on building brand image, and on how to charge high prices while still attracting customers in an intensely competitive market. “This is not just a matter of different ways of thinking. He and I are simply operating in two entirely different industries.”

According to household registration data from the Ministry of the Interior, the population of Yun­lin has been shrinking for the past 10 years, and the rate of population decline in that county is among the fastest in Taiwan. Moreover, 49.7% of the labor force in Yun­lin is employed in agriculture. Design firms are concentrated in northern Taiwan, so even though Cheng would like to make a go of it in Yun­lin, it’s not easy to find design talent. But he’s searched hard and managed to hire 15 employees, all of whom are from the local area.

Significant numbers of young adults are returning to their family roots to take up farming or set up firms in the cultural and creative sector. Wayne Cheng, who has taken up the burden of making a transition to a new type of industry by working to create a new brand, is a classic example of this trend.