Interior designers and convention industry people typically have degrees in marketing, advertising, or design. By contrast, David Liu, founder of Cogitoimage, graduated from Fu Jen Catholic University's Department of Philosophy. Most in the industry are big talkers who love to discuss business, but Liu seldom makes media appearances and is noticeably more shy. But he also has a sophisticated air about him that is rare among executives in the international business world.

After graduating from Fu Jen, Liu began working in the exhibition and convention industry. By 1993, he'd grown tired of the local industry limiting itself to the idea of "helping the client sell products" or being "booth designers" for various conventions, and decided to start Cogitoimage.

This company, whose name derives from Descartes' famous saying "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), has from the beginning taken as its motto, "Taking thought as the core, putting creativity first, and carrying through to make a world-class brand." Amid the domestic exhibition and convention industry, which is largely aimed toward the Taiwan market, Cogitoimage is truly unique.

For the Africa Joint Pavilion, Cogitoimage designed a large stage of sculpted clay, upon which faces of the continent's various ethnicities are carved. Most were modeled after the faces of real people, so their expressions are very lifelike.

"We developed along with Taiwan's IT industry," Liu says. Since the 1990s, Taiwan's technology industries have been growing rapidly, and in order to establish an international presence, tech companies have had the need to attend big international conventions to gain exposure. In 1995, Cogitoimage, which seeks to be the force behind the scenes for these companies, began setting up branch offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany, and China, hiring talented people in those localities and establishing a broad international presence for its clients.

Helping clients with full-service "space branding management" is what sets Cogitoimage apart from others in the industry, who traditionally focus only on the product and the booth.

What is "space branding management"? Liu explains that when Cogitoimage takes on a new client, it first makes a complete study of the client's corporate culture, brand image, and "dreams" for future development. Then, it makes a detailed survey of the client's current main market, the convention space, and the competition. Only then does it make a design suited to these circumstances.

KYMCO, which has worked with Cogitoimage for more than 15 years, is a perfect example.

Fifteen years ago KYMCO wanted to move into the European market, so it hired Cogitoimage to design a convention space. After completing a thorough analysis of KYMCO, Cogitoimage found that this local brand's image was dependable, lively, and full of energy. The problem was, Europe is different from Taiwan-domestically, KYMCO's big hit was its 50-cc scooters, and its youthful, local marketing was a success in Taiwan's market (for example, the famous "Who says I don't care" commercial from several years back, in which Aaron Kwok's girlfriend throws water in his face and he chases after her on his scooter, made a star out of Kwok and a hot brand out of KYMCO). But in more conservative and serious Europe, this might not play well.

Because of this, Cogitoimage designers suggested that whether KYMCO attended the convention or established an outpost in Europe, it should go for spaces with bright colors and sleek lines in order to highlight the brand's practicality and sense of design. Even more important, it suggested KYMCO meet the European market's demand for motorcycles, ATVs, and motorized three-wheeler carts. This plan was well received and is still in implementation today. KYMCO now sells more than 120,000 vehicles a year in Europe, with a market share of around 10%.

The Air China Pavilion, which was inspired by the mathematical symbol for infinity (∞), features themes of traditional Chinese cloud patterns and infinite vastness. These and the beautiful description of it as "a cloud by the Huangpu River" are highly emotive, and were key to Cogitoimage's turning of defeat into victory.

Cogitoimage's space branding management concept has been largely accepted by the industry. In addition to KYMCO, in its 17 years the company has worked with famous domestic and foreign companies such as Acer, BenQ, ASUS, Epson, Sony, OSIM, Microsoft, Giant, and Coca Cola, all of whom are now its loyal customers. The company's plans have won many awards, including a German CeBIT award for best exhibitor, a Japanese award for best city planning, a Taiwan Interior Design gold medal for industrial space planning, and a ranking in the Top Twenty Best Creative Designers in the Chinese Convention Industry.

After conquering exhibitions and conventions, in 2006 Liu set his sights on the Shanghai Expo. "The World Expo is the peak of the exhibition and convention industry," he explains, "so if Cogitoimage creations could be selected for it, that would be a great honor!"

For this reason, Cogitoimage submitted bids for various expo pavilions and, after several elimination rounds, finally won with its proposals for the Air China Pavilion (facade design), the Africa Joint Pavilion (interior exhibit design), and the Aurora Pavilion (entire pavilion).

The bid that the team members love to talk about the most is the design for the Air China Pavilion.

Singaporean Ming Lim, account director of Cogitoimage's Shanghai branch, says that in the early stages of the competition the call for bids only said the proposals had to fit the concept of "Flying makes the city better." Teams from 40 countries, including Germany and Japan, went off to develop ideas.

After brainstorming sessions involving the whole company, Cogitoimage came up with their proposal "Catching the Wings in Flight," with a building shaped like an aircraft's wings. The proposal made the top two after several rounds of competition. In the end, the officials decided to use a Japanese team's design but hoped Cogitoimage could provide a cost estimate for building it.

"We weren't resigned to it, though," Lim recalls. "If we accepted defeat at that point, wouldn't it all have been for nothing?"

Believing that they best understood the client's needs, Cogitoimage stepped outside the bidding rules to try again. The designers worked around the clock and came up with a design inspired by the infinity symbol, ∞. They modeled the pavilion's shape on the monkey king Sun Wukong's somersault cloud, symbolizing "boundless vastness." This new "cloud by the Huangpu River" design won praise from the clients and was accepted over the original winning design.

The others include the Aurora Pavilion, which was based on part of the simplified Chinese character for "ritual" and was developed from the deeply rooted role of jade in Chinese culture; and the Africa Joint Pavilion, which is inspired by the various ethnicities, geographic features, and rich resources of Africa, and features a giant three-dimensional stage carved of clay, a colorful market, and other bits of "African flair" such as thatched huts, wood carvings and stone buildings, all showing the multicultural aspects of the continent. Though it doesn't show off high-tech multimedia like other pavilions, the humane warmth of its design strikes a sympathetic chord in visitors' hearts.

Liu reveals that in order to create winning bids, Cogitoimage designers spent three months studying ancient relics at the Aurora Museum and made exploratory trips to Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, and South Africa. That's how they were able to grasp the spirit behind these pavilions and draw it out.

"It was no accident that we won!" says Liu. Just as he says, Cogitoimage was able to claim victory at the expo because its diligence surpassed the competition's. And isn't the glory they achieved a perfect expression of Taiwan's "never-give-up" spirit?