The design industry in Taiwan has begun to acquire a new momentum unimaginable even just a decade ago.
Consider a few prizes recently given out to Taiwanese artists. In 2009, fashion designer Johan Ku captured the Avant-Garde Award for his work “Emotional Structure.” In 2010, four recent graduates of Fu Jen Catholic University won the Asia Student Design Award in Hong Kong with the project “Lost Memories.” Most recently, Fruitshop International Co. Ltd. was awarded the 2011 iF Product Design Award at the International Forum Design in Germany for their work “Horn Stand.”
These accolades are a testimony to the enormous potential of Taiwanese designers, who have proven themselves time and again on the world stage. What is still needed is a way of turning their talent into a full-fledged industry.
The government, determined to transform Taiwan into a major artistic and design center, proposed a plan last May to support the cultural and creative industry. This plan eventually resulted in the passage of the Cultural Creativity Act earlier this year.
Since then, many relevant expositions have been staged, including Taiwan’s first International Cultural Creative Industry Expo in November and the 2010 Taiwan Design Expo, an event hosted annually since 2003.
“The Taiwan Design Expo was first staged with the intention of helping people know what design is and how it can improve their quality of life,” said Tony K. M. Chang, CEO of Taiwan Design Center, the organizer of this year’s exposition.
“If the general public has a better appreciation of the importance of design, manufacturers will be more willing to devote their attention to product design,” he said.
The expo, which opened Dec. 11, is a trial run for next October’s International Design Alliance Congress, a major exhibition whose goal is to bring together in Taipei 3,000 industry and non-industry participants from around the world.
“The theme of this year’s expo emphasizes the importance of incorporating cultural, environmental and human needs into leading-edge design,” Chang said. “Designers have been encouraged to take into consideration whether their works show a proper respect for Nature and the environment.”
The philosophy of the Combustion and Retro Design Studio is a perfect illustration of this attitude. A non-profit organization, the studio is mostly composed of full-time employees working at other large corporations such as Acer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., D-Link Corp., Giga-Byte Technology Co. Ltd. and Quanta Computer Inc.
“We wanted to take products from the past, give them a new design, and thus allow them to remain useful well into the future,” said Deson Wang, one of the founders of the studio.
To show what he meant, Wang pointed to a pocket-sized calendar designed by his colleague Lee Keng-chun. The piece, called “Transmigration,” extends the usefulness of traditional calendars.
The calendar pages are made from bamboo and so are not as flimsy as the glossy paper found in most traditional calendars. At the end of each month, when the pages are torn off, they can be used as bookmarks—a proposition all the more appealing because the other side of the pages contain laser carvings of animals unique to Taiwan, including the Formosan rock-monkey, pangolin, sika deer, hundred-pace snake, the Mikado pheasant and water buffalo.
According to Lee, calendars normally loose their function as time passes by, but the moment they are reinserted into books they acquire a new use: they can be used to mark the passage of time.
“I got the inspiration from traditional calendars—many families fold the torn-off pages into little paper boxes which can be used to hold things such as discarded fruit peels,” Lee said.
“The spirit of our designs is to extend the life and values of an old product,” Wang emphasized.
Nearby are products from another group known as the Think If Design Lab. Ramiel Yu, marketing representative of the lab, described their products as ones that can bring humor and wit into people’s daily lives.
A noteworthy example of this is the KeruKeru Spice Pot, winner of the iF Product Design Award at Germany’s International Forum Design in 2009.
Shaped like a Japanese sunny doll, each spice pot helps chefs measure precisely how much sauce to put into each dish.
“The head of the doll functions as a measuring spoon, letting chefs know how much vinegar or oil they’re using just by a tilt of the doll’s body,” Yu said.
“Being awarded the iF Product Design Award, the equivalent of an Oscar Award in the design industry, is a great validation of our work and can perhaps make our products more appealing to consumers,” Yu said.
According to Taiwan Design Center’s Chang, designs in Taiwan are different from those found in Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. Taking Germany and Japan as examples, he explained that the former emphasizes functionality, while the latter focuses on minimalism.
“Taiwanese designs do not have such obvious characteristics, because Taiwan is a melting pot of many different cultures.
“Designers can come up with different solutions at anytime according to the needs of their customers. When it comes to design, cultural diversity is one of our greatest strengths.”
“Taiwan is scarce in resources,” Chang said. “Our creative designs can help increase our competitiveness in the world.” (HZW)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw