Category: Designed in Taiwan
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Transitions Craig Whittet at the Glasgow School of Art asked me to write some words for the Product Design Engineering degree show – what an honour! The theme this year is ‘transitions’. Change is Scary In the time between your first day at art school, global finances have collapsed, century-old car companies and even entire…
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The penny dropped when my own Father announced that his company was ordering them for their employees; the heat was really on! Rewind; the Vostro brand, specifically established to provide Small Business owners with IT solutions. Until this point, the products were good value and worthy, but the brand had a pretty low profile. We…
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The pursuit of cheaper, faster manufacturing has lead to an enormous shift in the economies of the ‘old’ Industrial nations. After losing basic manufacturing and support roles, the West is now haemorrhaging advanced development and design functions to the manufacturing companies of Asia; in many cases run by Taiwanese business owners. Most of the major…
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Leaving design school, it can be really tough to pick a career direction; let alone find a job. Believing ‘change brings opportunity’, after graduating in 2003 I decided to head east and cut my teeth in Asia. Now all I needed was a job, and a destination. Since I had never been to Asia before…
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“Well, they didn’t teach us this in design school” These exchanges seem to happen with some regularity in the Dell design team. So it got us thinking, what didn’t they – or couldn’t they – teach us in design school? What do we wish we knew then, that we think we know now? Somewhat inspired…
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“I strive to create great things, resulting in satisfied people” It took me several hours, multiple attempts, over many months to write that simple sentence, but I think it sums me up. I am, by training, an Industrial Designer and Mechanical Engineer. However I seem to gain a similar amount of pleasure from cooking food,…
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Taipei tries its best at erecting buildings that have some semblance of style, even if that style is generating a neo-Gothic Greek Revivalist Bali retreat. But bless ’em, the local residents get to work modifying, adapting and extending their properties with scant regard for the outward appearance of a building. It’s something I have written…
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Last night, working with Mark Stocker at DDG, we conducted a second online seminar with Pure Insight. Unlike the bulk of their presentations (far more McKinsey in style, with lots of graphs and metrics and other things to lean on) we kept it much more conversational and anecdotal. Unlike the previous session, this ‘Members Only…
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Government support for exporting design in the UK is pretty strong, and the efforts landed in Taiwan last week, with the ‘Love & Money’ show rolling into town. Basically, a show case of the British creative industries, it showcased work from, among others, Zaha Hadid, Sam Hecht, Thomas Heatherwick and Jamie Hewlett. The work was…
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Last week, amongst trying to relax with the family, I hosted an online ‘Webinar’ for a company called Pure Insight. The title? “The Next Logical Step? Outsourcing Your Innovation to Asia“ I have used online meeting tools a fair amount in the past, but this was the first time I was driving a session, with…