When Australian Design Works in China: Contemporary Practice in Design (original) (raw)
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Losing In Translation? A Look at the State of Chinese Design Development
2008
Until recently, a positive view on the state of modern Chinese graphic design was difficult to find in the Western trade press. Hong Kong, under the rule of the British Empire up until 1997, was seen as simply mimicking and copying Euro-American works. The Mainland’s designs, under the Communist regime and economy since the 1950s, were dismissed as solely propagandistic and emulating the former Soviet Union’s visual mannerisms. It is as the New China, with its new market economy and powerful global presence, that Western design professions have begun to take notice that they have powerful design competition to face. Yet the Euro-American typecasting of Chinese design still lingers on, as evidenced in London’s current Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition, called China Design Now.1
Transnational Experiences India and China in Australian Industrial Design Education
2018
Educational experiences that equip undergraduate Australian industrial design students with a practice of design capable of effective engagement with Asian cultures and industries are of increasing professional importance. To enable this, the Industrial Design Program at RMIT University has had to shift paradigms. Long-held and essentially Eurocentric notions of the discipline have given way to being independent in its view of what the future of Australian industrial design would look like and where it's main locales of disciplinary engagement would be. The rapid economic development of India and China, and their respective differences in design capabilities to those of Australia, has provided an opportunity to build transnational design relationships through a program of integrated curricula and funded student mobility with partner institutions in China and India. This paper discusses the key issues of training Australian industrial designers for transnational practice.
PhD thesis, Royal College of Art, 2009-2014 This PhD research by project is for designers investigating relations between culture and design through an experiential perspective of Chinese culture in terms of developing a new understanding of ‘Chineseness’. ‘Chineseness’ in my work, can be re-mapped as a form of communication that deals with Chinese culture in design. It is not just along with historical stereotypes, nor a remote copy of other countries’ successful cultural transfers, but rather should be inseparable from the radical social phenomena and design culture already emerging within contemporary China. Through a series of design projects, my research is ultimately allowing Chineseness to be less implied and instead, to be made manifest, in terms of what behaviours over symbolism and decoration. New knowledge is articulated through exploring my understanding and its shifts during my approach to re-map Chinese cultural elements in design and search for the meaning of ‘Chineseness’. This research remarks the stereotypes, generalisations and categorisations when designers deal with cross-cultural design from both non-Chinese and Chinese angles. The thesis comprises three parts. The first part is a contextual review of cultural elements and appropriate methods. The second part explores a systematic approach to reflecting Chineseness from various cultural angles. These action-research method-led projects describe three ways of exploring the transfer of Chinese culture into design: symbolic, behavioural and political/philosophical. They culminate in an enabling developmental structure through which designers can deal with Chinese cultural complexity in design. The third part sees two final projects that reflect back and re-evaluate what Chineseness could be. The thesis contributes a three-layer structure that reflects Chinese cultural elements into design through methods and analysis of values in practice. Additionally, for the readers sympathetic with a systematic design approach or cultural identitarianism, this work addresses a view of critical understanding for facing Chinese culture in design.
This paper reviews the consequences that caused by the globalization of design and its unbalanced developments. From the example of modern design landing in far eastern area, describes the conflict of different ideologies and philosophies, especially the misunderstandings base on cultural gaps and the incommunicable elements from design localization. This paper explores how visual signals been read in a cross-cultural community, then identifies the effort of designer"s cultural and educational identities in the international contexts. This paper examines the design environment and designer"s working establishments of Hong Kong, and how Hong Kong designers overcame the issues of independent design language and global recognition in a complex society. The accomplishment of Hong Kong design industry provides a successful example of international design and further to reference designer in the globalized situations. And discuses the possible form of design education that can equip designers for their design practice and research in the future. DESIGN GLOBALIZATION: NEW MODELS AND IDENTITIES
Designing Contemporary China: National Design Identity at the Crossroads
China is an ancient civilization rapidly developing in a globalized post-modern context. The country now finds itself at a crossroads, with outside ideologies and forces of "Americanization" and "Westernization" competing against its cultural heritage and communist economic system to form a national design identity for contemporary China. This paper uses the rise of modern design in China, design examples from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, and Victoria & Albert Museum's China Design Now exhibit to investigate questions of national identity as they pertain to design. It argues that, with the whole world watching China's rise as a global economic power, the real challenge facing Chinese designers is how they can create a "new" image of China to present to the rest of the world, particularly the West, if they don't wish to be stereotyped by images from the ancient past.
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This paper discusses ways of fostering people-to-people connections in the creative industries between Australia and China, through a series of multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural workshops and exhibitions in both countries to engage creative practitioners and companies to foster partnerships and to increase cultural awareness amongst students in the areas of arts, design and health. Not only is China a leading exporter in the global market, it is also a rising importer of cultural products and services. A burgeoning middle class is boosting up creative consumption. China’s government is shifting its policy focus from “made in China” to “created in China”. As a result, Chinese governments and industries are actively engaging overseas partners for collaboration to pursue a new configuration of value. With the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, Australian creative practitioners are well placed to engage with China specifically in the area of design for health and the aged populat...
Writings on the design history and design studies of the Greater China region (the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan and Hong Kong) have not emerged at this stage. This article summarizes existing works on Chinese design history and study, giving a brief overview of the literature written and published in English and notable publications in Chinese. The brief review of each key publication serves as introductory text for the subject matter. This review takes a pragmatic approach, using the term ‘sheji’ as a currently agreed-upon translation for the English word ‘design’ in the region. Historically, in the Chinese context, ‘gongyi’ was used to refer to the skills (techniques and technology) and art (aesthetic and philosophy) of making crafts to satisfy the needs of everyday life, including the hereditary upper class and ordinary folks. Recently, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China further removed the component ‘yishu’ (art), with only the term ‘sheji’ (design) remaining, and made ‘yishu’ a new discipline in the Directory of Degree-granting and Personnel Training Disciplines (Xuewei Shouyu he Rencai Peiyang Xueke Mulu) announced in March 2011. This recent announcement signifies a new era of design education and unifies the various different terms used in the region to refer to the English word ‘design’. Owing to the complexity of the terminology referring to ‘design’ in the Chinese context, various Chinese terms may appear in this article, along with reviewed literature, to provide further background for the definitions of the term in the current Chinese context.
UK-China Design Policy Network Final Event
The event on the 25th November 2015 takes place at the Senior Common Room, Royal College of Art. It is part of an AHRC-funded ‘UK-China Design Policy Network’ project, aiming to facilitate interactions between designers, researchers and policy makers in both countries through a series of workshops and events. This is the final event where project findings will be disseminated. It is also a networking opportunity in seeking collaborative opportunities for future ventures. Three themes will be convened to include keynote speeches and panel discussions. The three themes are: International Collaboration, UK Design Policy Perspectives, and Design Value. The guest speakers include: Tom Saunders (Nesta) Anna Whicher (SEE) Benjamin Brown (Design Council) Sarah Teasley (RCA) Mikko Koria (Alto University and LUL) Nicolás Rebolledo (The Policy Lab, Chile) Who should attend? • Academics and researchers who are interested in design and innovation policy • Trade associations, policy bodies and those who are involved in policy development and delivery in the field of design and innovation • Postgraduate students who study and research on the topics of design, design innovation, design management and design policy • Design practitioners who are interested in international collaboration and are involved in or interested in government’s initiatives in design and innovation • Public and private sector organisations using design and innovation • Anyone who has a view on any of the topics raised in the programme and is keen to be engaged with the network For more information about the workshop and to book your place, please click https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/design-policy-network-final-event-tickets-19187599627 Look forward to seeing you on the 25th November.
Turning East: Design Research in China in a Global Context
Architectural Design, 2018
After a lengthy period in which seemingly the only new projects one ever heard about in China were those by international 'starchitects', the situation in recent years is greatly transformed. A very different type of building now features far higher on the radar, designed by innovative Chinese practices, and perhaps exemplified by Atelier Deshaus's Long Museum in the far West Bund of Shanghai, which opened in 2014. It is a brilliantly inventive piece of design, not least in retaining a landscape of old coal hoppers and loading cranes to offset its smooth, white intersecting vaulted ceilings.