Thinking Creatively Conference 2021 – Lecture Series.

The 4th Thinking Creatively Conference of

Michael Graves College at WKU just finished successfully.

Speaker & Lectures:

May 20, 12:00 – 1:00 pm

Eric Say

Eric advised the students to focus on the process in their learning because education is learning through the process. Their team had designed multiple options for a logo, receiving pushback, from which they looked for a better design and repeatedly started over.

He also exhorts students to study hard and work hard, which is the most important thing. Investing enough time and effort, and learning and growing in the process will eventually pay off. He has met students who were extremely talented, but they didn’t work hard enough and wasted their talent.

Finally, he emphasized that a good designer must be good at communicating because it makes your work and ideas understandable to the public. Whether it is with a professor, a student, or a client, communication is a basic skill for a designer. University is the best place to practice this skill, so he advised students to use this opportunity.

May 20, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

Yifei Luo

Professor Luo explored the significance of the brand’s identity compartmentalization by telling the story of the British luxury brand, BURBERRY.

She introduced the stories of artifacts from various periods around the world and explained the cultural meanings carried by the artifacts with an artistic anthropological approach. By presenting the cultural and historical contexts interconnected with these objects, she went back to the original social context of the objects to understand their rich cultural and social meanings.

At the same time, through the stories of objects, she explained their rich meaning for people’s identity, identity differentiation, gender construction, and collective social memory.

May 21, 9:30 – 10:30 pm

Snow Fu Yunxue

Professor Fu Yunxue used camera technology and 3D software to create experimental abstract scenes, thereby transforming liminal concepts into digital experiences.

The dreamlike images created by VR demonstrate the infinite possibilities of design. Speaking about her creative philosophy, she said, “In the digital space, we can reflect on the sublime beauty and overwhelming skill of technology.”

May 20, 10:30 – 11:30 pm

Jonney Jensen

Using the design process of a pair of shoes as the central vein, he shared his unique insights on design.

From the flash of inspiration to the mid-term polishing and refining, to the output of the final work, he explained in detail the design thinking in the complete process.

Talking about designing shoes, he said that his ideas were very simple at first, starting from sketches drawn with his hands to gradually working on more complicated designs. Although he thinks it would be very simple to start designing from the right direction, exploring various directions and multiple possibilities is also a crucial component of the process.

May 21, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

James WeiKe

Ke Wei emphasized the importance of sketching while traveling, as this medium authentically preserves the most original feelings and memories of the place at the time, a unique experience that even five thousand photographs cannot bring.

He spoke in-depth about how “The land of peach blossom” gave them the inspiration to design the building. As the founder and chief architect of Chiasmus Architects, he has led the design of notable projects like the Lincoln Jazz Center in Shanghai, the China Philharmonic Orchestra Concert Hall, One Bund Source, and Suichang Tea Garden Village.

May 21, 2:00 – 3:00 pm

Zhong Fang

Food is one of the current hot topics within the design field because it has multiple layers of value, such as providing energy and nutrition for survival, taste for enjoyment, and in the industrialized age, convenient and fun food is increasingly in demand. Meanwhile, food has an emotional and social value that connects people.

Food also carries different cultures and traditions, and people stretch their perceptions of the world through food. Today’s designers can collaborate with other professionals to make food more accessible, more interesting, and more conducive to human interaction and connection, a design process similar to the design process of any industrial product. But food, the foundation of human existence, is critical to a sustainable future. Making food more sustainable, both environmentally and socially, is a greater challenge for designers and means more opportunity.

May 21, 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Hou Ying

Ms. Hou Ying shared her experience of working-graduating-continuing to work, as well as interesting projects such as the Suhewan Exhibition in Shanghai, the Moon Cake Font, the Hundred Double Happiness Map, the Jining Art Museum guide, and the Weirdo Project. She said that her learning and insights about design came not only from the classroom but also from her time and conversations with several important mentors.

Ms. Hou Ying also shared that life is a long career, and it is crucial to keep learning and working to find the direction you are interested in, but you must not lose your love and heart for design. There is no good or bad difference between big factories and small studios; what suits you is the best. At the same time, she wished all students to find their inner love and clarify their future personal development direction.