Interview with Yu Chen

Yu Chen ("YC") interviewed on Monday, 23 November.

Could you please tell us about your experience as a designer, artist, architect or creator?

YC : I have been engaged in design work for four years, focusing on visual design. Now I am the creative partner of WDC and the world's leading designer of DAC, and I have won more than 20 international design awards.

How did you become a designer?

YC : I am a very emotional person, and I always have a lot of emotional feelings that I want to vent out. Compared with literature and music, I prefer to give people intuitive feelings through the visual and tactile sense of images or products, and I can convey my perception of the world through design.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

YC : After all, I am a visual designer, so the visual impact and beauty of the work is the first factor to be considered. In my opinion, vision is not a piling up of materials. As long as the information can be accurately and quickly conveyed, and can be remembered by customers and potential users, then success will be achieved.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

YC : I when doing the project, often in a tangle and I'm a detail point to the extreme, will have a very strict on every detail to control. Still, whenever the final finished product out, after that the feeling of satisfaction or great, more important is, when people appreciate my work, there will be a steady stream of a sense of accomplishment.

What particular aspects of your background shaped you as a designer?

YC : I am a designer who pays attention to emotion, and I am also an empathetic person. In my world, the falling of a leaf may trigger my infinite reverie, from the season to the passing of life, all aspects of life are affecting me. These ideas absorbed from life will become my inspiration and be incorporated into my design.

What is your growth path? What are your future plans? What is your dream design project?

YC : Next year, I will go to Britain or the United States to start my postgraduate career, hoping to contact more people from different cultural backgrounds. In the future, I want to become an independent designer and co-produce various IPs

What are your advices to designers who are at the beginning of their career?

YC : As a newcomer to design, I suggest that they should see more to improve our aesthetic appreciation and vision. Then, we should do some works and then reflect on the visual effect of our works. If we repeat the above steps, we will have a great improvement in the end.

You are truly successful as a designer, what do you suggest to fellow designers, artists and architects?

YC : Many designers only pay attention to the business. I think as designers, we should also consider the social and many minority groups, reflect the value of our designers in society, and promote the influence of cultural creativity in the world.

What is your day to day look like?

YC : My day is pretty normal. I get up, do research, do projects, watch some great work, read books, watch plays, and so on.

How do you keep up with latest design trends? To what extent do design trends matter?

YC : In recent years, 3d visual design and programming techniques have gradually emerged, which I personally think are also some fascinating design methods and styles. However, while learning these visual methods, I should not lose my original design skills.

How do you know if a product or project is well designed? How do you define good design?

YC : I think a good design must be controversial; controversy can cause people to think.

How do you decide if your design is ready?

YC : As for commercial projects, I personally believe that as long as the vision and information reach a certain degree of customer satisfaction, but if it is a personal research project, as long as it can please myself, I think a breakthrough, then it is a successful work.

What is your biggest design work?

YC : Compared with my commercial design, the design research of consciousness and semiotics, an experimental design I conducted recently, is probably the biggest project I have undertaken in recent years. The complete investigation of the project has made clear the relationship between the formation of consciousness and human behaviour and proposed a set of feasible design methodology.

Who is your favourite designer?

YC : I prefer Japanese designer Naoko Fukazawa and Mr Kenzai Hara. Their works are full of Oriental philosophy, and their works are concise and do not lose their charm.

Would you tell us a bit about your lifestyle and culture?

YC : I am an empathetic person and have a keen sense of what is going on around me. I found that many people live a simple day without feeling the things around them. The most important thing for us to be human is that we can think and feel complex emotions. If everyone can study emotional things, then our society will be more beautiful.

Would you tell us more about your work culture and business philosophy?

YC : I think the design does not need a lot of high-tech, a little change can have a big difference, as long as it is impressive is the best.

What are your philanthropic contributions to society as a designer, artist and architect?

YC : In my opinion, my greatest contribution is to let many domestic designers pay attention to emotional design. More importantly, my works have touched a lot of people, and in the process, I have also touched myself.

What positive experiences you had when you attend the A’ Design Award?

YC : By participating in A design Award, your work can be seen by more people. At the same time, this kind of international competition can also test your level as A designer.

Yu Chen Profile