I see design as a piece of art work & do design as a problem-solver.

When I was a child I watched my Grandpa make signature seals from jade. Before engraving the signature, he held the jade against the whetstone and polished it over and over again, until the surface was absolutely flat and the corners were flush and straight-edged, When he was finished he would smile at me. I fascinated over the grey jade powder falling from the grooves of the completed stamp seal and came to appreciate his pursuit of perfection in the things he created.

When I attended the first lectures at art school as a freshman, my Professor asked us to get into the habit of cleaning our hands with water before picking up the paint brush. He wanted us to understand that doing so would begin a ceremony, of treating the painting with the respect you would give anything you paid attention to and loved, and allow us to ¨ feel ¨ the texture of the oil colours through the movements of the brush. This made a huge impression on me, because it showed me that taking the act of creation seriously, made it more rewarding. This became one of my habits, one I would perform before sitting down and starting to - not only paint- but also begin any kind of creative work.

From those early experiences, I learned to respect the work I am about to create, and this deeply influenced my attitude toward design. Design should be treated as a piece of artwork, to be well-polished and cherished.

Something I regard as being important to the way I realize my self-value within a project is that I try to find and create sincerity, goodness and beauty. At the same time I truly believe that a good design can bring those three things to people ´ s daily life. Driven by this principle, I value every piece of my past design works and I try to develop and refine them because I like the idea of continuous improvement, and I am driven by the pursuit of perfection I admired in my Grandfather. When starting a design, I am good at contextualising the solution in my head to ensure a good visual quality from a range of my diverse ideas. When listening to users´ opinions during user research and usability testing, I am good at capturing and adapting insights; When problems arise, I enjoy the challenge of fixing them like a craftsman polishing their woodwork because it provides me great satisfaction to solve problems.

So in short, my art background allows me to see the potential for artwork in design outcomes and my experience in design allows me to employ design-thinking to solve complex problems.


Muzi.