Interview with Ye Shen
With an Industrial Design education taught in a Bauhaus manner, Ye Shen appreciates the beauty in mass-production and the romance in consumer-centered designs.
Interview about Wacky Pack Interactive Footwear Design Interview
Design Legend Interview
4 June 2023
I am a cross-disciplinary designer that has worked in the field of glassware, consumer electronics, furniture, eVTOL, soft goods, etc. Now I am focused on footwear design. I studied industrial design at Rhode Island School of Design, which taught in a heavily Bauhaus-inspired, problem-solving-oriented approach.
I have a strong urge to express myself through what I create. I found it romantic to have designed mass-produced products that can get into the hands of countless users. Therefore, I become a designer to establish bonds with this world.
I have practiced fine art since I was a kid. It wasn't until the end of my first year in college did I choose industrial design to continue my pursuit of creating physical products that can be used by many people.
I have focused on footwear design over the past few years. I mainly designed lifestyle products with an emphasis on telling a unique story through materials and colors or delivering unique user interactions with hidden functions.
Stay curious and never stop learning, always be willing to explore new territories.
In my opinion, a good designer is capable of delivering what he/she is tasked and briefed for. A great designer, conduct projects and create products that speak to his/her purpose and vision.
A good design should be functionally sound and aesthetically pleasing and should solve a problem in real-life scenarios. What makes a good design a really good design is the level of emotion it's capable of translating. A really good design is humane and cultural; a really good design should evoke memory, sensation, and emotions.
The value of good design is that it solves problems that users have not yet realized. Good design should be invested in because it makes a more efficient and pleasing world.
I would study cat ergonomics and design specialized cat trees that encourage indoor cats' exercise and provide comfort and ease of use.
I hope to create a series of footwear collection that celebrates the history of my cultural background.
My secret recipe for success is in the research process, and the secret ingredient is the attention of my end consumers.
Marcel Breuer, Dieter Rams, Louis Sullivan.
My all-time favorite design is the Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer. It explored the manufacturing techniques of bent metal tubes while the method was freshly introduced. As a result, it created an elegant yet functional seating solution.
Wacky pack, because it not only provided solutions and aesthetics as products but also dived into the cultural aspect of the sneakerhead and fashion community.
I constantly try to improve my attention to detail in a way that elevates product quality while being mindful of the time consumption of the process. Time management and efficiency are the top qualities of good designers.
I would perhaps practice culinary arts.
Design is solving a problem or defining a problem before it emerges.
My professors, classmates, friends, colleagues, and supervisors have all contributed to providing me with constructive criticism to help me improve.
Ambition, Determination, Sincerity, and Respect of the process.
I can easily default back to my older ideas and concepts while solving a new problem. The obstacle is the difficulty of letting go of my ideas in the past.
They should present their work with confident and clear logic about where they started and how they got to the end.
My next design project is to bring back archival footwear models from Puma's 90s catalog, adapting them to the model's desire for aesthetics and functionality.
Being able to implement my vision and creativity in all aspects and steps of my work.
People expect constant breakthroughs in design and products.
By addressing societal problems with creative problem-solving skills.
I'm reworking the designs of classic Puma footwear to target a younger consumer group with more design vibrancy and energy.
Wacky Pack, because it gave me a chance to investigate a consumer group and target audience that I had always been interested in, and had been a part of myself.
The increase in appreciation for Mass-produced products.
With the emergence of AI, the design field could be heading more toward indigenous crafts and culturally originated design approaches, because they express more humane quality.
As short as a day to as long as a year.
I start by researching all aspects that are related to the topic, in order to sort through them and find connections later.
PROCESS IS KING!
I think products follow trends but great design set the trends.
Technology should be employed to boost productivity or realize certain functions.
I mostly focus on physical prototyping to stay closest to the object I create.
They can bring a vibrant story to the product, assigning emotions and attitudes to the product.
I wish people understand the conversation I hope to start with my design and continue that conversation by creating new designs that speak to what I created.
My first reaction is immediately starting to investigate how the product is manufactured.
My ideal design partner is someone that possesses in-depth knowledge of certain materials or manufacturing processes. I believe in co-design as long as a clear role distribution is present.
The non-designer consumers who use the design on a daily basis.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
Keep improving what I'm good at and keep practicing what I'm bad at.
Leonardo da Vinci
It is a source of motivation to keep improving and creating my next best design.
Purple; Kyoto; Pork Belly; Summer; Cats; Puma.
A college friend of mine worked as the developer of a project I designed. Neither of us was aware of each other's role until the product landed on the market.
I attach emotions to the works of other creatives, trying to use their perspective to view the world a bit differently.
Not at all.
A thousand years from now, humans would probably live on other planets and design products that are used on other planets.
I found the ideation process the most challenging, and the fabrication process most pleasing.
Designer Interview
25 May 2023
Having a poet father and an illustrator mother, my artistic journey started from doodling all over the wall at home. With zero discouragement, my creativity was never caged. At high school, I came to realized that I wanted to practice creativity as my life path, so I searched and attended any program that provides me opportunities and atmosphere. I made my major shift from fine art to design with the appreciation of mass production and the hope that my creation could be used by a mass audience in a daily setting, instead of viewing on gallery walls only.
I have my corporate practice and personal practice for venting my desire to ideate and make. Officially during the day, I work as a footwear designer in the Sportstyle Department of Puma North America, where we create products with unique lifestyle perspective and comprehensive story-telling experience to push the envelope of this footwear category. Outside of work, I run a few brands that delivers products around the lifestyle I live in, from customized cat furniture, to plant-care accessories, to unofficial university merchandises.
Design is to solve or speak about a "problem", whether it is indeed "problematic" or not. For me personally, design is a unique creative channel through which I create bonds with my users, fellow creatives, and the world.
I'd like designing products to start a conversation about a subject through my unique perspective, observation or reflection.
The Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer. A functionally simplistic yet artistically pleasing piece of furniture made from tubular steel and leather. This design is yielded from Beruer's exploration in the medium and technique of bent metal tubes when they were freshly introduced and just became industrially available.
An aroma diffuser.
Fabric and leather, democratic and industrial.
During the process of fabrication or while exploring my materials.
The making. Through playing with mediums and executing ideas, unexpected lessons, new opportunities, unexplored characteristics unfold themselves.
Anxiety to ideate, pleasure to execute.
Sense of accomplishment.
When it performs a function or bring an emotion that users have yet to anticipate.
Whether it has unique and meaningful reasons to exist in this world.
Humanity, A designer, should understand the struggles, needs and craving of human beings.
I believe in the next 5 to 10 years, the emphasis will once again be placed on craft and hand-production.
Pre-Covid in the Elms mansion at Newport, RI, USA. I would like to hold my next exhibition in a window display of a corner store in a very busy street of New York.
It is hard to discuss the term "inspiration" when I practice design as a profession. I tend to feed my living experience to my creativity, and my creativity to my life. Many of my good ideas come from my internal reflections upon strange questions and myths that stuck in my head. I make connections between things I observe and think about, which can spark ideas when these connections become conflicting or juxtaposing.
My approach to design is to not owning a style, but rather explore different medium that are justified by the goal of my statements.
I currently reside in the US. Travelling to different parts of the states, taking parts of different grassroot cultures, brings me new perspectives to investigate different subject matters and trends I see day to day.
I enjoy staying and growing in a team that I feel like I belong to and can contribute to make it better.
To truly respect and consider their visions and skills as a creative problem-solver, instead of an employee. Designers tend to like speaking about their work more than themselves, so having conversation around their work can give companies a good sense of what they're dealing with.
My process differs greatly depending on the subject I tackle. However, all of my design process starts with some sort of subject research that collect detailed notes and data points, and then a mind map to link these points into a pattern to represent how I think.
Wassily Chair / Muji Bean bag / Cat trees I built for my cats / OXO peeler / Wok
I have lots of coffee, outwork myself, petting my cats.
As much as form follows function, your actions should follow your purpose. Try to be a purposeful designer before you become a good designer.
Positives: It's a sort of life hack to live by your creativity.
Negatives: When creativity is tied to your profession, it can burn out.
Negatives: When creativity is tied to your profession, it can burn out.
PROCESS IS KING!
The skill to learn.
Any software, hardware and medium that I can employ to realize my concept. Tools can always be learned, but the desire to create is the gem that cannot be lost.
I tend to break down a large task into smaller incremental tasks that I can tackle and feel the sense of accomplishment upon finishing each one.
As short as an hour to as long as years.
When are your shoes coming out?
It is still confidential at this point.
Puma, Nike, Clot, LG, Natchmann....
I enjoy bridging tradition or industrial techniques with a whimsical and wacky way to approach problem-solving. Through this combination, I get to practice my profession while expressing my personal statements.
I hope to become a creative director who can connect resources in every disciplines that I can be creative at.
I went to school at Rhode Island School of Design, which as a design school, doesn't offer very creative merchandises in my opinion. So I'm working on my own unofficial school-merch brand that celebrates the energy around the establishment.
2collegest@gmail.com