We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Quan Yuan ("QY").
I'm just an ordinary designer whose doing design for 30 years, but I hope to use my unique designs to make people feel relaxed, happy and more fun. Reducing excessive packaging is my goal, and I hope to use more environmentally environmentally friendly materials in my future designs to make the world a better place.
Quan Yuan Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Quan Yuan.
Quan Yuan Design - Cool Line Liquor Bottles
Designer Interview of Quan Yuan:
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?
QY : I graduated from Zhengzhou University of Light Industry and majored in industrial design. I studied painting since I was a child, and my ideal was to become a painter at that time, but I didn't get into the oil painting or printmaking majors of the Academy of Fine Arts, and only got into the design majors of a common university, and learned the design majors in a haphazard way. When I first went to college in 1990, China had just opened its doors to the world, and everyone knew very little about design. I knew even less about design and only had a basic knowledge of art. In the university only learned some design basics, the university teachers really understand the design is not much, but still through various channels to see a lot of foreign design albums, slowly from not understand to understand slowly become a designer. When I was young, I liked to see all kinds of novelty and fashionable designs of foreign designers, and fantasized about designing like them one day in the future.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
QY : From 1999 to 2007, I went to the United States to work for 8 years, during that time I worked as a designer for a web design company and a printing company respectively, and after I came back to China in 2007, I've been working as an independent designer with my own studio. I have done a lot of logo design, packaging design, and furniture design. Especially wine packaging, from the shape of the bottle to the outer packaging, these are what I prefer and specialize in.
DI: What is "design" for you?
QY : For me, design is about creating beauty and redefining the product from a new perspective. A good designer has to have his own unique insight, and cannot follow the trend, because the trend is easily outdated, while a good design is not swayed by the fashion trend.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
QY : My favorite style is minimalism, there is no extra stuff, less is more.
DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
QY : I like furniture design and wine bottle styling the most. Because they both have one thing in common, they are very much like modern sculpture, I prefer to create a different feeling by shaping the form.
DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
QY : The first piece of work I designed was a logo design.
DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
QY : my favorite materials are wood, metal and glass.
DI: When do you feel the most creative?
QY : I think I am most creative after the age of 45 because the more I read and experience, the more I see, the more creative I become and the more control I have over my creativity.
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
QY : A good design must be beautiful, practical and easy to use. So I will consider these three aspects when designing.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
QY : Every good design should have its anthropomorphic temperament, and through this anthropomorphization, let it tell its own story. Good design speaks for itself.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
QY : When a good design is realized, I would like to look at it as if it were my own child.
DI: What makes a design successful?
QY : For a design to be successful, it has to be practical, then it has to be easy to use, and then it has to find a balance between the designer's and the client's and consumer's aesthetics. Then there's the timing and the angle of entry.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
QY : Lots of great designs, you fall in love with them at first sight, for no reason at all.
DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
QY : I think the designer's responsibility to the society and the environment is to use environmentally friendly materials to create beautiful designs, and not to waste the society's resources to make some junk designs.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
QY : I can't predict how design should develop, just like 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a lot of predictions about the present society were wrong. The future of design needs to evolve on its own.
DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
QY : My last exhibition was in China in 2023. I have now moved to the United States for my children's education and freedom of expression, and I have no plans for my next exhibition.
DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
QY : My designs are inspired by the amount of reading I do, and by other forms of art, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, clothing, movies, literature, history, etc. You have to read a lot to make a good design. If you want to make a good design, you have to learn a lot of other knowledge and absorb it into your own design language. If you only refer to other designers' works and see a lot of shadows of other people's works in your work, that's plagiarism.
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?
QY : I don't have a fixed style, I will try different design styles according to the customer's needs and product characteristics. But I like simple design style, I don't like too much decoration.
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?
QY : I will be living in China most of the time until 2024, and many of my clients like to add elements of traditional Chinese culture into their designs, whether it is appropriate or not. And they like to modify the design according to their aesthetics until they change a lot of good designs into another look. Many strong clients are borrowing designers to realize their own aesthetics. It is very difficult for designers to have their own space to play in many times.
DI: How do you work with companies?
QY : I have worked with a lot of companies, and very often it is the design company that works with me and I do the design. I do the designing because my main focus is on designing, not on maintaining the relationship with the client.
DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
QY : For Chinese companies, there should be enough respect for the designers, there should be a testing program, let the consumers decide the design, not the investor bosses decide, after all, the success of the design is the market to decide.
DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?
QY : First find out enough designs of similar products to avoid others' design ideas. Think from multiple perspectives, come up with ideas, think about how to realize it in a better way, and keep thinking until you find the optimal solution.
DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
QY : The Butterfly Stool, designed by Japanese designer Sori Yanagi, Panton Chair by Danish design master Verner Panton, The Egg Chair by Danish designer Arne Jacobsen, Soy Sauce Bottle by Japanese industrial designer Kenji Ekuan. Black Line Table by Japan's new generation designer Oki Sato.
DI: Can you describe a day in your life?
QY : My day-to-day life consists of taking care of my 12 year old son, working and learning English.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
QY : Try to stick to what you really want to do, don't give up, try to see as much as you can, learn more about knowledge that seems unrelated to design, history, literature, movies, cultural relics, etc., where your design inspiration may come from in the future.
DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
QY : The disadvantage of designers is that they are more tired, always thinking about design solutions all the time, although they are happier when they succeed.
DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?
QY : Avoid other people's design ideas and don't imitate them.
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
QY : Sketching and the ability to make models quickly are more important.
DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
QY : Mac and Adobe series software and C4D.
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
QY : You can think while cooking and utilize fragmented time.
DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
QY : It depends on the specific project, some are one or two months, some are six months or more than a year.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
QY : I get asked all the time, Why do you design this way?
DI: What was your most important job experience?
QY : I lived, studied and worked in the U.S. for almost 8 years from 1999 to 2007, which opened my eyes to a different world, very different from the closed environment I grew up in before.
DI: Who are some of your clients?
QY : My clients include pharmaceutical companies, food companies and liquor companies.
DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
QY : My favorites are furniture design and liquor bottle styling. Because they both have one thing in common, they are very much like modern sculpture and I prefer to create a different feeling by shaping the form.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
QY : In the second half of 2024 I moved to the United States for the sake of my children's education and freedom of speech. I think when I stabilize, it would be best if I could find a job as a designer because that's all I'm good at.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
QY : I've always been an independent designer, developing my own designs.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
QY : Not yet, I hope to have the opportunity to do furniture design in the future.
DI: How can people contact you?
QY : I can be contacted at my e-mail address quanyuan99@gmail.com and cellphone +17185828686 to contact me.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
QY : I don’t know.