We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Royole Corporation ("RC").
Founded by Stanford engineering graduates in 2012, Royole's mission is to improve the way people interact with and perceive their world. The company creates and manufactures next-generation human-machine interface technologies and products including advanced flexible displays, flexible sensors, and smart devices. Technology milestones include the world's thinnest full-color AMOLED flexible displays and flexible sensors (2014), the world's first foldable 3D mobile theater (2015), the world's first curved car dashboard based on flexible electronics (2016), the first smart writing pad, RoWrite, based on flexible sensors (2017), the volume production of Royole's quasi-G6 mass production campus for fully flexible displays (2018), and the world's first commercial foldable smartphone, FlexPai, with a fully flexible display (2018).
Royole Corporation Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Royole Corporation.
Designer Interview of Royole Corporation:
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?
RC : I learned industrial design in Hunan University of Technology 9 years ago. Becoming a designer like Leonardo da Vinci is my goal, and that’s why I named myself “Vinci”.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
RC : Royole Corporation is based in Shenzhen China. We are a Hi-tech company which has the ability to product flexible-display screen. We had developed many products based on our own flexible display and flexible sensor tech.
DI: What is "design" for you?
RC : Design is the process of produce order from chaos. design is the tools and method of make the bridge between society, tech and people. For me, design is not a job but the way of how I existence.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
RC : I like different projects. Any non-duplicated work is OK for me.
DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
RC : I am always trying to make my next design as my most favorite one.
DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
RC : An electric soap dispenser- Penguin Bionic Design.
DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
RC : I don’t have a preference before, but now, I would say that anything that is traditional, such as handmade craft.
DI: When do you feel the most creative?
RC : In the morning.
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
RC : The usage, function and how it works.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
RC : I have different emotions at different stage of design. In one words, curiosity, expectation and passion are the main emotions all the time. I am deeply in strangle when time runs out but the work not going well.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
RC : If the product succeeds on the market, I feel very happy.
DI: What makes a design successful?
RC : A successful design is a design that can solve problems in a smart way.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
RC : Easy to use and environment friendly.
DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
RC : Designer is the maker of social rules, indirectly and directly. Designer has the responsibility to use sustainable materials, promote reduce waste and protect environment.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
RC : I think design is driven by social culture. It develops on the basis of contemporary philosophical theory. In the foreseeable future, rational philosophical thinking will still be the mainstream thinking of the society, and the future of society and design will be rational.
DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
RC : No, that might be happen thirty years later.
DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
RC : My creativity comes as I can always empty my mind and leave experience away when I start a new project.
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?
RC : I don’t have my personal design style because I don’t have deep systematic thinking about the design style from the history. In terms of current design style in the world, I don’t like hi-tech.
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?
RC : I live in Shenzhen, China, a modern immigrant city. I think Shenzhen has the best environment in the world for a designer to grow and develop. Shenzhen has No.1 production capacity, consumer market and forward thinking.
DI: How do you work with companies?
RC : I am a contract worker.
DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
RC : Find the people who has high field of vision is most significance. Make the designer have opportunities to involve in strategic decisions.
DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?
RC : I take a plenty of time to understand what the key point is; I will hand making demo when I start drawing the rough idea. Once I had basic demo on my hand, I will shape the details in 3D in an easy and fast way.
DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
RC : My favorite design is sliding door that saved space and also make me very easy to close and open it, it saved time and physical strength as well, Other else, there are too many object need to be redesigned for me, e.g. a tools for open coconut, an umbrella i never lost, a smart shower that can free my hand, a private smart emotion and mood care assistant that only services for me.
DI: Can you describe a day in your life?
RC : It has been very busy when i work on Flexipai project, sometimes i have to work with supplier make sample at white day and make design details at night after back home.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
RC : Just Keep Moving. Concern about social cultural changes. Concern about the how people influenced by tech.
DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
RC : Designer has the opportunity to understand the original word deeply.
DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?
RC : No words, Make the product speak itself.
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
RC : Curiosity.
DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
RC : Many of 2d&3D software like illustrator and ProE.
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
RC : Normally, I take over 50% of time to understand the requirements and make clear the path of problem solving. That will make the whole work faster.
DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
RC : It depends on what kind of project I am working on; it may take me over 5 months to lock down a cell-phone ID. But I probably only need 1 week to develop a Bluetooth speaker industrial design.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
RC : What do you design?
DI: What was your most important job experience?
RC : I once worked for an European design agency to develop headphone for Logitech UE. At that time, as a junior designer, I learned a lot from the company founder who is a RCA background designer. He influences me a lot on design.
DI: Who are some of your clients?
RC : I serves for company, I had designed some products for Anker TCL Alcatel and Logitech.
DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
RC : I am not really good at team work sometimes; I prefer to work with small team that can make great things together.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
RC : For the long-term plan, I am not sure yet, maybe make my own business, launch cool product for kids or start up a simple lifestyle brand with health related.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
RC : I probably will build up team to work on my own product for future, but not now.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
RC : No. Not now.
DI: How can people contact you?
RC : https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinci-yuan