We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Gudao Design Studio ("GDS").
Gudao is a design studio of Jiangsu Guaizuo Cultural Creativity Co., Ltd. This team is addicted to not only design but also Chinese traditional culture. To express the attitude of life which is in pursuit of humanism in oriental culture Gudao uses the cultural elements in product design. Specifically the studio works on housewares and furniture design, these can be given more spiritual needs. Design of Gudao is to present how people like them think and express their views of culture and beauty.
Gudao Design Studio Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Gudao Design Studio.
Designer Interview of Gudao Design Studio:
DI: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
GDS : I graduated from Huaqiao University in 2013 and have been engaged in the design industry for five years. A good product can bring sense of accomplishment and honor being recognized by consumers, which inspires me to become an excellent industrial designer. The career of designer has always been what I pursue, and I dream of becoming an excellent designer.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
GDS : GUDAO DESIGN studio was founded in 2013 in Nanjing, China. The industrial design is an integrated design organization integrating industrial products and brand design. It focuses on the development and design of industrial products.
DI: What is "design" for you?
GDS : Our design is to solve all kinds of problems in life. Bring products that integrate solution and emotion to consumers.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
GDS : I like the best design works with aesthetic value, good sense of technology, and humanistic care.
DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
GDS : The wall type CD machine designed by Fukazawa Naohito for NUJIWhen designing a product, designers not only express beautiful things. Instead, it focuses on how to make it establish a relationship with the owner in the next life. First of all, it should be complete, balanced, and concise (this is not limited to the visual sense); it is then in its movement, space, and performance, in other words, making a clever design for the period of time with the relationship. In addition to the basic mission of the product, with the designer's opinion, create emotions that cannot be expressed in words and images.
DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
GDS : Bamboo, wood and metal are all my favorite materials. Bamboo and wood can reflect the warm texture, natural and gentle. Metals have a sense of the future that can express technology.
DI: When do you feel the most creative?
GDS : The most creative products that effectively solve problems in life
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
GDS : User experience, appearance, function, material, color, etc
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
GDS : Coexistence of joy and anxiety
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
GDS : When a design is transformed from a work to a product, it is of course joyful. If the design can not be transformed into a product 100%, it is regretful. When the product was realized, it was still dominated by enjoyable and had a great sense of achievement and honor.
DI: What makes a design successful?
GDS : Delicate life experience, design career experience, designer's self-cultivation and opportunities.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
GDS : Whether the problem is solved and whether it is beneficial to life.
DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
GDS : Different designers have different design ideas, and the design concept is conveyed to the public through the design works, which has a great influence on the public. At the beginning of design, the importance of environmental protection exists or not, and the impact on the natural environment is far-reaching.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
GDS : For China, the current design field is in a vigorous development stage, and the design is obviously unbalanced in different regions. This situation is changing. With the upgrading of consumption and industrial upgrading, design will be part of life.The future of design is more personalized. With the increase of consumer power, it is a challenge for designers that individual needs to be satisfied.
DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
GDS : Last exhibition was completed in November 2017, and the new exhibition is planned for autumn this year.
DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
GDS : Mostly come from daily life, good at discovering problems. Knowledge and communicaton are also essential for inspiration. Only by constantly find problems and solve them, a source of inspiration will never dry up.
DI: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
GDS : I think that all designs originate from the natural environment, continue to learn about nature, and continuously analyze the natural environment. All physical changes originate from the natural environment. Tracing the source makes me continue to explore this design style. This kind of learning natural environment design style is endless, inspire me continue to understand the natural environment, the natural environment has nurtured the designer's thinking. The ultimate goal is to design excellent products.
DI: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
GDS : I live in Nanjing, China. This is a city with a long history and profound culture. Cultural heritage is not only a country's business card, but also the cultural connotation is deeply rooted in our blood. This cultural connotation has an important influence on me and my design works.China has a vast market and many opportunities and challenges. The opportunity is that China is in the high speed development stage, will meet many different types of design projects, will let our designers have more learning opportunities, and there will be a lot of conditions to break through their own.
DI: How do you work with companies?
GDS : The cooperation between designers and enterprises is a complementary relationship. The collision between thinking and enterprise product technology will create many sparks. Designers constantly understand that the more cooperative will design more suitable works for the company. The enterprises we cooperate with are not only designing products, but also bringing design thinking into enterprises and introducing design thinking into enterprise strategy. We will take the consumer pain problem as the core breakthrough point of our company's products, and be praised by our partners.
DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
GDS : Companies should repect designers and their works.They should firstly understand what kinds of designer their need, choose the most suitable one.
DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?
GDS : When receiving a new design project, we first look at existing product problem points and pain points from consumers. Study the environment in which the enterprise is located and help the cooperative enterprise to meet the problem points.
DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
GDS : Ipad, Mi Notebook pro, B&O speaker, Philips electric toothbrush, Supor rice cooker
DI: Can you describe a day in your life?
GDS : Every day is the new beginning of the design work, every day will encounter all kinds of problems and joy. Design books are essential for designers after work.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
GDS : As a young designer, I think the design is endless, experience every detail of life. Let life be a source of inspiration for design.
DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
GDS : A good designer's work must be expressing a positive point of view, good ideas will be beneficial to consumers.
DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?
GDS : "ten principles of design" by Dieter Rams
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
GDS : Ability to observe life, hand-drawn products, computer-aided design software, etc.
DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
GDS : Rhinoceros，keyshot，Photoshop，AdobeIllustrator
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
GDS : Good design is the accumulation of time, for a design project, I think the prophase product research is spent more time, only the prophase research, pain point problem solving, then the whole design project rhythm will be accelerated.
DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
GDS : Design cycle is not necessarily, design cycle is proportional to the complexity of the design project.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
GDS : For a design project, the most important thing is to solve all kinds of problems, a problem has different solutions, we need to find a more reasonable way from many solutions.
DI: What was your most important job experience?
GDS : For designers, no matter how difficult it is to design a project or the size of the project product, it is hard to forget. Each design project is the beginning of a designer career. So every design experience is vivid, is a kind of help for the design career.
DI: Who are some of your clients?
GDS : Our customers are mainly concentrated in: consumer electronics, medical products, power tools and housewares.
DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
GDS : Furniture, kitchenwares and consumer electronics, furniture and kitchenwares are full of warmth, consumer electronics have unlimited technology imagination.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
GDS : My design career planning is to have own representative works, which can become classic products, be more beneficial to consumers products and have a good impact on the social environment.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
GDS : Our design projects are carried out in the form of team work, now the content of the design project is more and more extensive, only team work can design a good work. Different designers have different advantages, the advantages of centralized amplification, this is a good design team.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
GDS : We are working on a design project for an electric wheelchair. The design project involves a lot of content. We are looking for various solutions to constantly improve the product, and I believe this will be an excellent design work.
DI: How can people contact you?
GDS : Introduced by our clients.