Interview with Leafer Circular Design

Leafer’s co-founders met at the National Cheng Kung University Institute of Creative Industries Design (NCKU ICID). One was an industrial designer exploring service design for the circular economy. The other was a communications researcher exploring user experience and web development. They united under the mission of helping small and medium-sized enterprises become circular businesses through system thinking, a focus on users, and maximizing material value.

Design is envisioning the result, and planning the process. It is about communicating a tangible solution to address the needs of a target client or user, and then clarifying the steps needed to achieve that. Our approach to design is to find the most efficient way to effectively help the client accomplish their mission.

We love the sense of achievement that comes from first, identifying the root issue of a situation, and later, developing a solution that creates value for all involved. We’re also invigorated by the challenge of possibly optimizing it further.

Designers need to be able to zoom in and out of the challenge at hand. This allows them to think outside the box, while also creating fine-tuned solutions to meet the challenges presented. It’s also important to design from goals, rather than objects. Often an initial request (e.g., a new product) is not the best solution to a client’s actual need (e.g., perhaps an upgrade service to an old product will create more value for both the client and users).

In the future, we hope to create a system for connecting Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises to a network of circular designers. To achieve this, we’re currently working on a workshop to help designers lead businesses to reconsider their resource use and business models. We hope this can help more companies employ designers in higher-level design projects, ultimately creating more circular economy businesses.

To design is to learn how to observe, to replicate, and to improve something. Also, users are central to any design. A design without their needs and situations in mind is useless.

As circular designers, we consider whether the value of the resources used are maximized. For example, yes, agricultural waste can be combined with plastic trash to create new products, but surely this is costly, creates relatively low new value, and will be harder to separate in the future! A better design might take a step back to identify why this plastic ended up as trash, find ways to efficiently extract value of each individual part before being “waste”, and involve a design that keeps future separation (value) in mind.

Work hard, eat well, and communicate a lot.

Trends help guide our understanding of current market needs, but our work is ultimately geared towards creating designs that can withstand change and uncertainty. More and more businesses are realizing how unsustainable their business models are to themselves and the planet. Circular economy is a practical approach to becoming sustainable, with design at the core of making it possible.

A successful design helps the target audience envision a better outcome and includes tangible steps to make that happen. It’s system-driven, user-centric, and maximizes use of resources.

We also always begin by working with clients to discover the true needs behind their initial inquiry, a clarification of the bar from which to measure a design. Following that we explore user situations, create proposals for further clarification, and revise based on the client’s feedback. Lastly, we execute our ideas, creating something that we’ll all be satisfied with.

We’re proud of helping a long-time client create a low-waste exhibition to showcase the accumulation of nearly a decade of experience and design cooperation. It was a celebration and sharing of the possibilities of a new material product we helped them develop, created from the reforming of discards from their current production. We look forward to helping them and similar others showcase the potential of new products and business models.

One design we’re a fan of is Gogoro’s battery swap network. The design of this business model has successfully allowed their electronic scooters to infiltrate the local long-established gas-powered motorcycle market, and now they’re expanding in other international markets.

We’re based in Taiwan, a small island which has seen many different eras from aboriginal pasts to colonization by both the West and East to military dictatorship to modern democracy silently fighting for independence. As a small country with few natural resources, economic survival has been about finding niches and creating services between raw suppliers and buyers. This often means that design is squeezed out of the business equation. Design in Taiwan has reflected this need for differentiation and heavily focuses on revitalizing products and services.

We’re an interdisciplinary startup, so most of our work is done in-house as a team. That said, we’re always happy to find new freelancers to work with on a long-term case-by-case basis.
We hope companies will be open to letting designers work with them on higher-level projects, considering strategy and business model. A good designer can identify a company’s advantages, the value of its used resources, and create business models to make efficient use of resources to satisfy the needs of their users.

It’s commonly quoted that the design stage is responsible for 80% of a product’s environmental impact. We as designers have the privilege of working with key business decision makers, and the responsibility of helping them consider sustainability. Circular economy is a practical method to reach sustainability, with design at the core of making it possible.

We’re grateful that the merit of our work has been recognized by other designers. It’s not only encouraging to us as a motivator to continue, but also helps us to communicate to others the value we bring to our clients.

We are circular designers because we want to help businesses satisfy their target users in a way that maximizes the value generated and of the resources used.

Designers have both the blessing and curse of knowing that the world around us has been designed. In this world of our own creation, we have the privilege of working with key business decision makers, and the responsibility of helping them consider sustainability and impact.

As circular designers, we consider whether the value of the resources used are maximized. Our design work ranges from the design of a product or production itself, to its supporting packaging or visual communication, to the overall service design or user experiences, and to any other sort of work to create value.
Our favorite designs are the ones in which the client was willing to work with us on rethinking their original inquiry. Rather than being a product-driven design team, we’re driven by the goal of helping the client achieve greater value through strategic reevaluation and efficient resource allocation.

To design is to learn how to observe something, to replicate it, and then improve upon it.

Designers need to be able to zoom in and out of the challenge at hand. This allows them to think outside the box, while also creating fine-tuned solutions to meet the challenges presented.

A successful design helps the target audience envision a better outcome and includes tangible steps to make that happen. It’s system-driven, user-centric, and maximizes use of resources.

We hope companies will be open to letting designers work with them on higher-level projects, considering strategy and business model. A good designer can identify a company’s advantages, the value of its used resources, and create business models, products, and services to make efficient use of resources to satisfy the needs of their users.

We focus on working with small and medium-sized companies. They’re the backbone of our economy and often the most interested yet hesitant to use new business models in line with the circular economy. We’re trying to change the world, one step at a time.

In the future, we hope to create a system for connecting Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises to a network of circular designers. To achieve this, we are working on training designers and gathering momentum as a design company.

Rather than being object-driven (e.g., a product, a brand, a platform), we’re driven by the goal of helping the client achieve greater value through strategic reevaluation and efficient resource allocation.

We are inspired by the world around us. From the work of other designers, from nature, from the unspoken systems that our society has created.

One design item we’re a fan of is Gogoro’s battery swap network. The design of this business model has successfully allowed their electronic scooters to infiltrate the local long-established gas-powered motorcycle market, and now they’re expanding into other international markets.

It’s hard to pinpoint a single greatest design, but a memorable one we are proud of was the creation of a new product line using a client’s production byproducts. We essentially helped them create value out of thin air, while maximizing the use of existing resources.

To design is to learn how to observe something, to replicate it, and then improve upon it.

Leafer is an interdisciplinary design company focused on helping clients join the circular economy. Even if we weren’t able to “design”, we would be helping our clients with strategic planning and business consulting.

Design is envisioning the result, and planning the process. It is about communicating a tangible solution to address the needs of a target client or user, and then clarifying the steps needed to achieve that.

We are grateful to our long-time clients for working with us since our beginning as freelancers.

Many iterations and interactions helped us become great designers.
Each time we work with clients, we hone skills to discover the true needs behind their initial inquiry, get better at communicating proposals, and create better designs that maximize the value of resources used.

Early on, we were approached by an activism group asking for unpaid proposals to a large enterprise’s goal of reducing plastic waste. We figured why not, and approached the project like we do with any other case: taking a step back to identify the reason behind this plastic becoming “waste” in their system, and creating a solution tailored to address that issue and that creates value for all involved. When we heard the proposals from the other groups and their feedback, we knew they had no real desire to change their business model, and just wanted a shiny new product package for the sake of greenwashing. This solidified our desire to focus on helping small and medium-sized enterprises, and to hold true to our mission of creating products and services that create economic value and reduce environmental impact.

Designers should present their work in a way to best communicate to the target user. There is no one solution to accomplish this.

We’re currently working on a workshop to help designers lead businesses to reconsider their resource use and business models. We hope this can help more companies employ designers in higher-level design projects, ultimately creating more circular economy businesses.

In the future, we hope to create a system for connecting Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises to a network of circular designers. To achieve this, we have to start training designers and gathering momentum as a design company.

Most new clients are unfamiliar with design, thinking it’s only about making objects attractive. Due to that, we often hear the innocent question of “can you give me a quote for a _ product?” This greatly underestimates the value design can bring beyond object exteriors, whether it be creating a new experience for existing products, creating new services based on identified user needs, or even creating new business opportunities.

It’s commonly quoted that the design stage is responsible for 80% of a product’s environmental impact. We as designers have the privilege of working with key business decision makers, and the responsibility of helping them consider sustainability.

We’re currently working on a workshop to help designers lead businesses to reconsider their resource use and business models. We believe this can help more companies employ designers in higher-level design projects, ultimately creating more circular economy businesses.

A recent memorable design project was the creation of a new product line using a client’s production byproducts. We essentially helped them create value out of thin air, while maximizing the use of existing resources.

As circular designers, we consider whether the value of the resources used are maximized. Yes, agricultural waste can be combined with plastic trash to create new products, but surely this is costly, creates relatively low new value, and will be harder to separate in the future! A better design might take a step back to identify why this plastic ended up as trash, find ways to efficiently extract value of each individual part before being “waste”, and involve a design that keeps future separation (value) in mind. We hope to see the design industry create long-term value rather than twice used trash.

We agree with IDEO CEO Tim Brown’s statement, “The next big thing in design is circular.” More and more businesses are realizing how unsustainable their business models are to themselves and the planet. Circular economy is a practical approach to becoming sustainable, with design at the core of making it possible.

Object design can take anywhere from a few months to a full year.

Our design process starts from exploration and clarification. Following that we propose and revise based on the client’s feedback. Lastly, we execute our ideas, creating something that we’ll all be satisfied with.

Users are central to any design. A design without their needs and situations in mind is useless.

A successful design helps the target audience envision a better outcome and includes tangible steps to make that happen. In this way, design makes trends possible. Still, at the same time, it’s trends that help inform what designs to make.

We like to get our hands dirty by experimenting with new materials, platforms, and technology. For example, based on our experience optimizing an earth-based plaster ratio, we feel that clay has a lot of potential in replacing cement. Technology exploration opens our imaginations for future design work.

We use all the common tools: Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Cloud, Figma, Pinterest, etc. We use Figma in most projects we do to communicate ideas.

A successful design helps the target audience envision a better outcome and includes tangible steps to make that happen. It’s system-driven, user-centric, and maximizes use of resources.

We encourage curiosity and any sort of questions. It’s only through inquiry, observation, and communication, that we can improve our own abilities and output quality.

We see an opportunity to learn from their success. After all, to design is to learn how to observe, to replicate, and to improve something.

We design from goals, rather than objects. We like working with clients who are willing to work with us to re-clarify their needs. This allows us to work back from their initial request (e.g., a new product) and define the best solution to their actual need (e.g., perhaps an upgrade service to an old product will create more value for both the client and users). In that sense, design is a cooperative sport.

We’ve learned a great deal from our clients. Listening to and observing their situations, needs, critiques, and praises are what have allowed us to innovate thus far.

It’s hard to pinpoint a single most influential book, but we were heavily influenced by the concepts in the books “Products that Last” and “Products that Flow” by several authors affiliated with TU Delft.

Over iteration after iteration.

We always enjoy our chats with Shadow Chen, the CEO of the Circular Taiwan Network. We could talk for hours about global circular economy initiatives, the evolving industrial design field, and the challenges of running an organization.

We’re grateful that the merit of our work has been recognized by other designers. It’s not only encouraging to us as a motivator to continue, but also helps us to communicate to others the value we bring to our clients.

We’re biased, but we think Taiwan is a wonderful place. Taiwan, as a small island, has seen many different eras from aboriginal pasts to colonization by both the West and East to military dictatorship to modern democracy silently fighting for independence. As a small country with few natural resources, economic survival has been about finding niches and creating services between raw suppliers and buyers - often meaning design gets squeezed out of the business equation. We're excited that design in Taiwan is experiencing a design rebirth, as businesses realize design's ability in differentiation and revitalizing products and services.

We’re very lucky to have such great clients. In the distant past, miscommunication led to a fallout with one of our long-term clients. However, they weren’t able to find another designer of our caliber and quality, so they eventually reached out, and the miscommunication was smoothly resolved. Projects with them are always great.

We love the sense of achievement that comes from identifying the root issue of a situation, and later, developing a solution that creates value for all involved. We’re also invigorated by the challenge of possibly optimizing it further.

As children, many of us liked art, tinkering, and exploration.

We think humanity will become even more intertwined with technology. We hope that humanity can quickly move to circular economy business models, so that humanity can comfortably exist a thousand years from now.

We are Leafer on most social media platforms. If you have question or are interested in cooperating, please email us at hello@leaferdesign.com

Leafer is an interdisciplinary design company focused on helping clients join the circular economy. This means we help them with strategic planning and business consulting before any sort of design execution.

Design is envisioning the result, and planning the process. It is about communicating a tangible solution to address the needs of a target client or user, and then clarifying the steps needed to achieve that.

We design from goals, rather than objects. We like projects when the client is willing to work with us to re-clarify their needs. This allows us to work back from their initial request (e.g., a new product) and define the best solution to their actual need (e.g., perhaps an upgrade service to an old product will create more value for both the client and users).

Our favorite designs are the ones in which the client was willing to work with us on rethinking their original inquiry. Rather than being a product-driven design team, we’re driven by the goal of helping the client achieve greater value through strategic reevaluation and efficient resource allocation.

We have a long history of working with client companies on design, but a memorable one was the creation of a new product line using a client’s production byproducts. Essentially creating value out of thin air, while maximizing the use of their existing resources.

We like to get our hands dirty (experimenting with new materials, platforms, and technology). For example, based on our experience optimizing an earth-based plaster ratio, we feel that clay has a lot of potential in replacing cement. As far as platform/technology, we use Figma in most projects we do to communicate ideas.

We feel the most creative when the client is eager to communicate and willing to reposition themselves and their business.

Circular design is about maximizing the value of resources. For us, this means rethinking what products are created, how they are produced, and who will be using them.

We love the sense of achievement that comes from first, identifying the root issue of a situation, and later, developing a solution that creates value for all involved.

Of course we’re elated when we see the results of our designs, but as designers, we’re also invigorated by the challenge of possibly optimizing it further.

A successful design helps the target audience envision a better outcome and includes tangible steps to make that happen. It’s system-driven, user-centric, and maximizes use of resources.

As circular designers, we consider whether the value of the resources used are maximized. Yes, agricultural waste can be combined with plastic trash to create new products, but surely this is costly, creates relatively low new value, and will be harder to separate in the future! A better design might take a step back to identify why this plastic ended up as trash, find ways to efficiently extract value of each individual part before being “waste”, and involve a design that keeps future separation (value) in mind.

It’s commonly quoted that the design stage is responsible for 80% of a product’s environmental impact. We as designers have the privilege of working with key business decision makers, and the responsibility of helping them consider sustainability.

We agree with IDEO CEO Tim Brown’s statement, “The next big thing in design is circular.” More and more businesses are realizing how unsustainable their business models are to themselves and the planet. Circular economy is a practical approach to becoming sustainable, with design at the core of making it possible.

We helped a long-time client create a low-waste exhibition to showcase the accumulation of nearly a decade of experience and design cooperation. It was a celebration and sharing of the possibilities of a new material product they have, created from the reforming of discards from their current production. We look forward to helping them and similar others showcase the potential of new products and business models.

We are inspired by the world around us. From the work of other designers, from nature, from the unspoken systems that our society has created.

Our approach to design is to find the most efficient way to effectively help the client accomplish their mission.

We’re based in Taiwan, a small island which has seen many different eras from aboriginal pasts to colonization by both the West and East to military dictatorship to modern democracy silently fighting for independence. As a small country with few natural resources, economic survival has been about finding niches and creating services between raw suppliers and buyers - often meaning design gets squeezed out of the business equation. We're excited that design in Taiwan is experiencing a design rebirth, as businesses realize design's ability in differentiation and revitalizing products and services.

We always begin by working with clients to discover the true needs behind their initial inquiry, a clarification of the mission of the design. After that, we provide several rounds of proposals on how to achieve that mission until they are satisfied.

We hope companies will be open to letting designers work with them on higher-level projects, considering strategy and business model. A good designer can identify a company’s advantages, the value of its used resources, and create business models to make efficient use of resources to satisfy the needs of their users.

Our design process starts from exploration and clarification. Following that we propose and revise based on the client’s feedback. Lastly, we execute our ideas, creating something that we’ll all be satisfied with.

One design item we’re a fan of is Gogoro’s battery swap network. The design of this business model has successfully allowed their electronic scooters to infiltrate the local long-established gas-powered motorcycle market, and now they’re expanding into other international markets.

Work hard, eat well, and communicate a lot.

To design is to learn how to observe something, to replicate, and to improve it.

Designers have both the blessing and curse of knowing that the world around us has been designed. We live in a world of our own creation, and a designer can only do so much to change that.

Users are central to any design. A design without their needs and situations in mind is useless.

Designers need to be able to zoom in and out of the challenge at hand. This allows them to think outside the box, while also creating fine-tuned solutions to meet the challenges presented.

We use all the common tools: Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Cloud, Figma, Pinterest, etc.

We manage our time by subdividing tasks into subtasks and arranging by priority and need for communication.

Object design can take anywhere from a few months to a full year.

Most new clients are unfamiliar with design, thinking it’s only about making objects attractive. Due to that, we often hear the innocent question of “can you give me a quote for a _ product?” This greatly underestimates the value design can bring beyond object exteriors, whether it be creating a new experience for existing products, creating new services based on identified user needs, or even creating new business opportunities.

Early on, we were approached by an activism group asking for unpaid proposals to a large enterprise’s goal of reducing plastic waste. We figured why not, and approached the project like we do with any other case: taking a step back to identify the reason behind this plastic becoming “waste” in their system, and creating a solution tailored to address that issue and that creates value for all involved. When we heard the proposals from the other groups and their feedback, we knew they had no real desire to change their business model, and just wanted a shiny new product package for the sake of greenwashing. This solidified our desire to focus on helping small and medium-sized enterprises since it’s relatively easier for them to make changes, any change can easily have a big impact, and they feel stronger economic pressure.

We focus on working with small and medium-sized companies. They’re the backbone of our economy and often the most interested yet hesitant to use new business models in line with the circular economy.

We think high-level difficult projects are the most rewarding. The more a client is willing to rethink strategy and business models, the more we’re eager to help them achieve their mission.

In the future, we hope to create a system for connecting Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises to a network of circular designers. To achieve this, we are working on training designers and gathering momentum as a design company.

We’re an interdisciplinary startup, so most of our work is done in-house as a team. That said, we’re always happy to find new freelancers to work with on a long-term case-by-case basis.

We’re currently working on a workshop to help designers lead businesses to reconsider their resource use and business models. We believe this can help more companies employ designers in higher-level design projects, ultimately creating more circular economy businesses.

We are Leafer Circular Design on most social media platforms. Business inquiries can be emailed to hello@leaferdesign.com

We’d be happy to answer any questions you have or details you’d like to hear!