WaikitChung.com

During my 2 years stay in Shanghai, I have made 2 one day trips to two ancient water towns, both at around a 2 hour drive distance from Shanghai.

The first one was Xi Tang, which I have actually visited it twice, once just with my wife and the other time with my family who came to visit us.

Xi Tang became ‘famous’ after Mission Impossible 3 was filmed there. I remember that I had just bought my first SLR Nikon D40 camera on the day before I went to Xi Tang for the first time. We stayed over night to experience the night scenery and the quiet and peaceful night. By the way, if you go during the work week then you do not need to pay the entrance fee.

Two weeks ago, I went with some friends to another water town called Wu Zhen. We rented a 8 person van for around 800rmb. The obvious difference between Wu Zhen and Xi Tang is the size. Wu Zhen is much larger and spacier as Xi Tang is a very compact town.

I would still recommend to go both towns if you don’t have enough of these water towns after one visit. These are great places for great photo shooting, having Chinese tea or traditional Chinese food along the canals. Go there if you want to escape the crowded Shanghai.

What happened after I quit my job?

I felt that I needed to do something else to develop myself further in a different way for the time being, as I thought that it was not the right timing to find another design job during the recession.

I decided to improve Product Design Forums and Product Design Hub was born out of it to primarily fulfill the need to find the best information from the big amount of discussions, tutorials and advices that have been posted on the forums.

So I spent one month on the web design of Product Design Hub, learning and using the open source Content Management System software Joomla as the backbone. The site was launched in March and the feedback has been good so far. The blogging part of the site is not going as smooth as I wish, but I still see a potential to attract designers and companies to share their design stories and experiences with the industrial design community. If you are interested to know more about contributing articles, please visit this page.

In April I started to work on a freelance project for a Dutch company that is specialized in developing temperature control devices for the greenhouse use. Together with a Dutch friend we are responsible for the complete development from the first sketches to the manufacturing of a family of products.

The tooling started begin this month and the the first test parts came out from the molds. Here is a picture from the mold factory, in which you see a female employee working in front of a plastic injection molding machine:

But then in May I started to feel that I need to go back to work full time in a design environment, as I discovered that I am more interested to work with other designers and people in a design studio where I still can learn a lot of things and also the recession is not making me easy with my online business and freelance work.

So I started to look for job opportunities here in Shanghai, because I still love this city and I still believe that the future in design in China is bright. You can read more about my job hunting experience in a later post.

Begin January I decided to quit my job at Asentio Design, the design studio where I have been working for 1,5 years. In that period I have learned a lot about industrial design, user interaction design and how to work with Chinese designers and engineers and how to communicate with clients. I worked for international and local clients, such as Philips, Cisco, Samsung, Nokia, Infineon, Flir, Absolut Vodka, ChangHong and Lenovo.

At Asentio Design I participated in different kind of projects and I was given different responsibilities that helped me to improve and develop a variety of skills, which are:

Research: analysis, interception, interviews, market research, trend research
Conceptualizing: brainstorming, organizing & selecting feasible ideas
Sketching: pen sketching and marker renderings; Delivered hundreds of sketches that communicate principles, forms, functionality and manufacturability
2D rendering: learned to do 2D renderings in Photoshop, here in China it is usual to communicate with 2D illustrations, but I was more used to use presentation drawings in the Netherlands
3D modeling: regular 3D modeling in Rhino 3D for presentation and prototyping purpose
Prototyping: defining CMF of designs, realizing mockups and prototypes (semi functional)
Client communication: communicating design decisions in a clear and efficient way to client and team
Project management: managing a small team of 3 designers (+ researcher in initial stage of project)
Internship coordination: responsible for recruiting and guiding international and local interns
Company’s representative: representing company’s design work and philosophy at a design exhibition in QingDao

After an half year working for Asentio I was given the opportunity to be a project leader for a project commissioned by a large American corporate client, named Cisco, who asked us to help them developing a design language for their first series of surveillance cameras and to create user friendly designs in terms of installation. That project is my successful highlight as a designer and project manager so far, as Cisco realized our design into a real product with a brand new design language and user friendly installation method.

Cisco's first surveillance dome cameras

I am sure one day you will see the design in public spaces, like the airport, bank, office, hotel, etc..
You can read more about the product at Cisco’s site

Furthermore my Chinese language skill has also been improved a lot, which is a very important skill here if you want to communicate efficiently with your local colleagues, clients and vendors and it comes really handy in your daily life. I feel much more home here in Shanghai when I am able to communicate well with the local people. Understanding the local humor is also a joyful plus. I always try to speak Chinese as much as possible, without being afraid that people may laugh at me, which happens all the time.

So what happened after I quit my job? You can read that in the next blog post

Abbey Road

If you are a foreign industrial designer in Shanghai, then you are specially invited to join the ‘Designer Gathering’ on next Friday, July the 3rd. It’s been a while that this gathering has been held. Previously organized by German industrial designers Anke and Lars, but they both left to their homeland.

Fortunately, there are 3 German (again) designers, Boris Brawer/Jonas Vollmer/Tim Richter, who have taken the initiative to continue the ‘Designer Gathering’. Thanks guys for organizing! Man, seems like German designers are ruling in Shanghai

We are going to meet on:

July 3rd 2009, 7:30 pm

???45??????

Oh yes, please add your comment if you want to join, as the organizers need to make reservations. I make sure that you will be put on the list of participants. And if you are local Chinese, then you are also welcome of course.

CU there!

Shot at the Bund in Shanghai

Hello there,

If you are reading this, then you have probably followed my profile link from Product Design Forums or LinkedIn or you found me through Google because you are interested to know more about design in Shanghai or it happened that you have discovered about my blog through a design site that is linking to me.

I hardly believe that you have bookmarked my site and just came back to here to check if I finally have a new post. If yes, please let me know in your comment.

Anyways, I am back from a busy and difficult time and I am planning to continue blogging about my journey in Shanghai. I will, yes I promise I will at least update you about what happened in the period of time that I haven’t posted at all. Since October 2008 this blog was basically ‘dead’ and now I want to put some life into it, because from the statistics I still see people visiting this place.

Cheers,

Waikit

I have finally bought my first SLR camera, a Nikon D40! It is the smallest and lightest and probably the cheapest SLR camera on the market and I love it.

I was looking for an affordable and good SLR camera to start learning photography on a higher level and I think I have found it. The D40 comes with a very good 18-55mm lens for nice portraits and landscape shots. I have purchased an additional 70-300mm Tamron lens, which allow me to zoom in a far distance object and create macro shots of bugs and flowers. Very sweet lens for again an affordable price.

Okay, here are some newbie shots I have made in the Shanghai Wild Animal Park from yesterday’s visit:

There are some more photos made with this camera when I was in Xi Tang a few days ago:

http://productdesignforums.com/waikitchung/photos?album=2&gallery=13

If you are interested in the camera, check out some good reviews here:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40/

This weekend I took a short visit to the 4th Shanghai Design Biennial at the Shanghai Exhibition Center.
It was a big disappointment, because there is not much interesting things to see. There were mainly local companies presenting themselves with not too attractive content in their booths. The covered space was small too.
I just stayed for less than 1 hour and made some quick shots:

Taiwanese industrial designer Carl Liu created a book that contains a lot of hand drawn sketches and showcasing his HP PDA design project through the whole design process,from the initial design sketches until manufacturing. This is a must have book, especially for students who want to be inspired and motivated by this highly talented designer, who worked for Astro Studios and Motorola.

I bought this book in 2005 and I still peek into it to learn how his sketches communicate so well. It’s bilingual (English & Chinese). This book is so unique and very enjoyable to read. He writes about his design philosophy and explains a general design process (useful for first year students), but the most interesting part is the collection of his amazing sketch work (ideation sketches,concept sketches, storyboards and exploded views) with additional comments. His visual communication skills are superb.. I have never seen such strong sketch skills before. So i think it’s a must read for designers who want to improve their sketching abilities, cause looking to his work is certainly educational..at least to me. I believe that I have improved my sketching skills after purchasing this book, cause it motivated me to sketch a lot.

Please read a discussion about Carl Liu and his book and order the book if you are interested.

IDSKETCHING.COM

“So here’s the deal – John (jm745) and I (snugja) go way back. We went to the same college took the same classes, and have some of the same passions. We both love sketching, creating and teaching. That’s what IDSKETCHING.COM is all about.

John and I decided that it was about time we share our work and methodology with the general design/art community. We’re no masters by any means, but no such undertaking has been attempted by anyone in any way such as this. We came up with the idea to share and share alike. To have this site as a resource for all to use to better their skillset.

We believe in helping others and providing a resource for all to use absolutely free of charge. We believe that by helping others, you ultimately help yourself in the process.

Alot of time and energy has been put into the site and we hope that you’ll come back weekly for updates and monthly for our longer featured demos. Like I said, this is a massive undertaking. We have a small library to start with, but join us as we make this dream a reality.

Thanks for waiting and being patient! The site will be heavily updated in the next 2 weeks so keep visiting and telling your friends about it! ”

Just go and check it out! It is incredibly sweet and awesome! Something you might have been waiting for a long time.

Today, a colleague shared the following article with me:

Set an effort-based goal.
If you’re honest with yourself, you probably already know which tools in your box need sharpening, and setting yourself a specific goal for improvement is the obvious next step. Creative growth can be difficult to measure, so the most effective short-term goals are usually based on effort rather than quality:

-”I will sketch for one hour after work every day until the end of the month.”
-”I will design four album covers for a band that I like by the end of the summer.”
-”I will learn enough animation to make a one minute movie about my last project by September 1.”

The beauty of goals like this is that they lift the heavy burden of performance from your labors; a burden which, paradoxically, can prevent you from doing your best work. Bill Buxton’s recent book recounts the story of a friend teaching a ceramics class, who chose to divide the students into those whose grade would be based on the quality of their best piece, and those graded purely on volume of output. Across the board, the best work came from the latter group: freed of the pressure to perform perfectly, they instead created prolifically, learning and experimenting in the process, with little fear of failure.

Setting a “volumetric” goal like this for yourself can achieve similar results, and has the added benefit of coaxing you into a more flexible mindset regarding skill-building in general.

Some times you might be too busy with work and do not have the time to improve design skills that are not being used in certain design projects for a long period of time. For instance some projects do not require 3D modeling at all, so you might get rusty on that.

I found a similar article that shares the following tips about sharpen your skills:

Set aside time for learning. Whether it’s 30 minutes a day, or an hour a week, it’s important that you set aside a regular block of time to learn about your profession. That might be reading magazines or blogs or books or trade journals, that might be paying attention to the work of others, that might be taking a class, or just working on your skills on your own. Whatever you do, be sure to schedule it, and don’t miss that appointment.

Pay attention. Let’s face it: many of us have been doing what we do for so long that we do much of it without much thought. It’s second nature. But that just allows you to do what you’re doing without change, without improvement. Instead, pay closer attention to what you do, to your skills. Just that act, of paying attention, can make a big difference, because it will make you focus on those skills more, and see what you could be doing better.

Fine tune. Once you start paying attention, see how you can improve. Look closely at each skill you have, each thing you do, and see what can be made better. Things can almost always be made better. Work on each skill, practicing it until you’re perfect, trying new things, getting creative.

Get inspired. It can be hard to motivate yourself to improve, especially when what you’re already doing works for you. But if you look at the work of others, especially others at the top of your field, or past masters, it can be enough to inspire you. Find ways to get inspired by the amazing works of others every day, and you’ll never stop improving.

Learn from the masters. Study closely the work of the masters, read about them, read things they’ve written about your craft. If possible, learn from them directly, by studying under them or working with them. They got where they are today by studying from the masters that came before them.

Get critiqued. Sometimes we can’t see what we’re doing wrong, because we’re biased, too close to the work. So you need to get an outside eye to take a look at it. Ask someone you respect for a critique of your work. Ask them to be honest, and specific. And when they give you that critique, don’t be offended or hurt or angry. You want honesty. Take whatever they said that’s critical and make it a way for you to improve yourself. Make a list of their points and see how you can get better at those points.

Take a class. If there’s a class available for your skills, and it’s taught by someone better than you, it’s worth taking. Sure, you can probably get the same information from books or magazines or the Internet, but there’s nothing like a class for learning, because it forces you to take the time to sit and digest the information, and you can often get personal interactions with the teacher so that you can understand the material even better. And if you turn in work to the teacher, you’ll get a critique from an expert!

Work with those who are good. Instead of taking a class or getting a critique from someone who is at the top of your field, work with them. Collaborate, get on their team, work at their company, or do a joint project. There’s nothing that teaches you better than doing, and working with those who know what they’re doing. Pay close attention to everything that they do, ask questions.

If things get boring, look to improve. Once things get static in your work, you will begin to get bored. That’s because you’ve stopped being challenged, and stopped improving. Instead of looking for something else to do, see this boredom as a sign that you need to improve yourself, and set new challenges for yourself. Take a new look at what you do, and see what new goals you can set for yourself that will challenge you to do better.

I believe you might agree that eveyone of us finds it important that we need to continually sharpen our skills to keeps ourselves challenged, interested and passionate about our job.

Our design team decided to have a 30min work break for every Wednesday. We use that time to sharpen our different design skills, through training and practicing.

So, how do you sharpen your skills during your busy work days?