Interview with Hung Yuan Chang

In my mind, good designer is the person that finds the problem and solves and great designer does more than solves the problem but also breaks the tradition and creates a new path.

A good piece of design could only make life easier and better. Same as owning a piece of furniture that is designed and crafted well, which will make you feel comfortable and be more focusing on what you need to do. And of course, if you own a very unique piece of furniture in your house, you could brag about it when your friends visit.

I would love to design a museum if that’s possible. A museum that’s made for ordinary population which could be easy accessed.

I have my secret sauce which is a combination of different professional areas and experiences such as interior design and architecture, and adding my passion when it comes to design.

Of course, tons of them: Santiago Calatrava, Rem Koolhaas, Leo Fender, Renzo Piano and MVRDV.

I definitely love the the samuel beckett bridge designed from Santiago Calatrava. which is a perfect balance and mixture of sculpture and physic science.

I challenge myself all the time - my knowledge and my techniques. I am also challenging the traditions and perceptions constantly. I am always hunger and wanting to know or do more.

I always have passions in music, all kinds of music. I think I would go down that path if I am not a designer.

I am seeing this as one of the necessaries as the work needs to be seen and be criticized before it becomes a great masterpiece.

Good design should make the society and people’s life runs easier and smoother.

I am working on multiple furnitures right now, one of them is going to be a new experience for me since I am going to work with someone whose skill is iron crafting which is something I’ve never tried before.

I’d like to see designers could be respected more in Asia where good design might not receiving the respect as it should nowadays. But of course the young designers should get stronger and demonstrate themselves.

Caring our environment is an important trend for every industries since we are facing more and more challenges with the rapid changing of our environment, design is no exception, that’s going to be the topic that all of us should care about.

Have you done your best and have you carry out the best out for the work - always challenge myself.

Hard to tell - it could be the history trend that takes us to a certain design but it could also because of the design creates a new era.

I always want to know where was the start and what inspires the work.

I do believe in co-design, working with people with different mind is always an exciting thing because you never know what chemistry is going to happen which might lead to something extraordinary.

I’ve been trained 5 years in the architecture field thus I started the development of my fundamental designing skills when I was in school. And when I was with my first job, the frustration and the gap that I perceived between book theory and practice in the real situation led me want to go down a different path thus I chose furniture design. What I realized was only when you are strong enough and have 100% control that you are going to be compromised.

I am so glad and excited that my work is now being recognized which is a long way and not an easy way. Every designers start from somewhere, right?

I love navy blue, that’s my favorite color.
My favorite food is Taiwanese cold noodles with sesame sauce.
The lakes in Rochester New York during the winter is my favorite place and now you also see my favorite season.
I could go crazy with guitars.
And the brand that I ador most is Giant, the bike maufactuer.

An upbeat rock music is a must to start my day!

Now that I look back, it’s quite obvious - I love drawing and tearing things apart and put them back together when I was a kid. My favorite toys were Lego and Bandai models. These toys had help me shape the way I think and how I construct things.

This is an interesting question but I don’t think I could give you an answer as the mother earth had been damaged by human being so badly, I could not imagine there are still human after thousand years. But in the short run, I’d love to see auto-piloting cars to be available for everyone as I hate to drive so much.

Instead of calling it a design studio, my working space is more like my “laboratory” in which I experiment all kinds of different techniques, combining what I learned in RIT for making furnitures and my training in architure world. It’s a small space packing with all my crafting machines and works, big and small.

For me, “design” is a process of finding a solution to a particular case or creating something new that has never been done.

I have ideas for different type of things such as buildings, bridges, furnitures and music.

Fender Stratocaster, which is one of the best guitars in the world. Not only because it’s easy to play and comfortable for the player but it’s also one of the most classic industrial design in the whole instrument development history. The most outstanding characters of Fender ST is modularization which is easy to be mass produced and very easy when it comes to repair and maintain.

It’s quite a comprehensive project which includes bike lane, parks, hiking trail, public restroom and vista corner.

I like both wood and metal and is my favorite technique.

When I interact with my people.

I like to focus on how to break the traditional techniques and transform the work into something creative.

Both exciting and painful.

It reminded me when I saw my babies were born - it is both exciting and touched.

A successful design should be creative but not to sacrifize it’s logic.

Creativity, structure as well as whether it is logical when combining the materials.

Solving the problems in a form that’s workable is the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment.

I could see there are many aspects when talking about design field evolvement: how to respect and feedback to mother nature more and how to utilize more new materials. The progression of the society and technology is going to toss a lot of problems as well as opportunities to the designers and that’s what the designers should keep in mind when sailing into the future.

Last one was in 2016 in Rochester New York and I’m planning to have another few more in the next 18 months.

The majority of my inspiration comes from my observation of people’s daily life. A lot of times creativities come from criticizing imperfect things or limitation which leads to finding a solution via make.

My style is clean and minimum when it comes to design and visual presentation. I guess it’s originated from my past live designing buildings and bridges, I found a form that’s most economic and reasonable, and it could go with any different external setups.

I was born and raised in Taiwan, a small country in East Asia. Taiwan has a very unique culture which combines both western and eastern cultures due to the history that the country had gone through. Although I do not feel the culture that I am from influence my works visually but it did impact me dramatically when I am processing my creativity. It gives me a very multi and depth point of view. But because of the history and economy situation of my country, Taiwanese tend to put return of investment in front of everything.

There Are different kinds of “good designer”, he or she could be either cooperative and listen to the client companies all the time or super unique and carrying his/her own thoughts. Of course there are different pros and cons working with different types of designers. At the end of the day, the company should go back to it’s goal honestly and looking for/working with designer that could reach the goal based on the goal.

My iPhone, which I could not live without. My Fender guitars. Subaru SUV, Festool crafting tools and bikes made by Giant.

Morning is the most lively time of my day, I usually cannot wait to go to my studio and get my hands onto my design projects. I might do all sorts of different things in the morning, work or not work related, it’s the time that I have the most ideas. I might do different things during the rest of the day - I might do crafting, researching or sometimes just spend time with my friends. In the evening I walk my dog after I get home, sometimes I cook for the family. During the night I usually go back to research again after my two baby girls go to bed.

Dare to play hard. Observe the world with your own eyes. Challenge things and try to solve problems.

Sometimes people see the work that designer creates could be seen as too simple which doesn’t worth the value without considering the details behind the design. But entering the designer world and being able to create and craft something that’s beautiful and useful is the most positive thing for me as a designer.

Always challenge myself whether I do my best to make the work the best and the most unique.

I don’t think there are any particular skills that are definitely important for a designer - some designers are good at making things beautiful, some are good at making things practical and some are good at coming up great and unique ideas, they are all different skills and they could carry different level of importance for different type of designer.

I rely on Autocad and Picasa quite a lot which help me on defining sizes and structure of my works. And of course I have tons of tools for crafting, electrical ones and manual ones plus piles of paper and pencils.

It is difficult to manage time but my rule of thumb is my sleep time has to be sufficient. Only when I have a good night sleep that I could perform my best. As for the rest, I just follow the flow, do whatever I need to do.

It various, different type of designs could take different length of time. Take my chair as an example, it took me 3 months from having the idea to finish it.

Designing a bridge when I was in Taiwan.

I don’t have a profile of my clients, they could be anyone.

My plan is simple - keep on designing and crafting! I set myself a goal to make 300 chairs and furnitures. As for next steps, I hope to have more exposure and make my furnitures be seen by more audience.

All by my own development.

I am working on a new design of drawer that could be used on a lot of different furnitures which I haven’t seen people doing that before.

Internet is the best channel - email or Instagram.

Not at this moment, we’ve covered quite a lot.