Redesign to new design
When Philippe Starck, a French design guru known for his childlike perspective, visited Taiwan, he remarked that the biggest problem Taiwanese designers, and designers throughout Asia, face is a "lack of creativity." If designers lack confidence in their creative abilities, they will continue just copying Western designs, blindly following the mainstream. And if entrepreneurs and management don't give their designers creative space and instead just wave a photo at them saying "I want one of these!" then there is no room for inspiration.
Cheng Jin-dean, associate professor of industrial and commercial design at National Taiwan University of Science- and Technology and a 20-year design veteran, says that this problem is rooted in Taiwan's OEM history. In the past, management generally didn't want innovation, and in fact believed that innovation meant risk; instead, they only cared about how to improve on others' designs in order to profit with minimal expense. Today, though, with the rise of brand consciousness, everyone is aware of the importance of creativity.
So the question is, how do we move forward?
Zheng believes that fostering creativity must begin with design education. For example, in 2004 founder of leading American design company IDEO David Kelley was hired by Stanford University to lead the creation of their Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. In the process, he brought to bear his decades of previous experience and the perspectives that they granted him, distilling them into the creation of a leading graduate course entitled Design Thinking.
Put simply, designers should look at their projects from the perspective of ordinary people, rather than simply focusing on aesthetics and functionality. As such, designers should also be encouraged to think about the sourcing of resources, downstream production techniques, and even how to improve lives through commerce.
For example, one of Stanford's courses, entitled Launch Pad, requires students to design a feasible commercial product from scratch in three months.
One student, Erica Es-trada, remembered seeing the poverty in small Indian villages during her travels, and that many lacked power and water. The woman in charge of her homestay there would have to fill up a kerosene lamp to go out in the dark to feed their cattle, and if the lamp ran out, she had to grope her way home in the dark, putting her in a dangerous situation.
Using her knowledge of opto-electronics and the resources she had available, Es-trada used a soda can as the base of an LED lamp costing less than US$10 to make. In just a year, she sold 2 million lamps, and now she has founded her own company and begun developing low-cost, environmentally friendly solar-powered lighting, and selling products in over 40 developing countries. And Estrada is far from the exception as far as students in this course and commercial success are concerned.
This approach has been sweeping through American colleges, with leading schools like Harvard and MIT following Stanford's lead. Bloomberg Busi-ness-week referred to this as a new and innovative way of thinking that could replace the traditional commercial perspective of business schools.
Taiwanese design is beginning to blossom, lending new color to the island's towns and cities. This photo shows the opening ceremony for the 2010 Good Time Public Art Festival.