Interview with Jo Zhu
I am a furniture designer with my own design company in Guangzhou, China. Previously I was an interior designer worked in the locally famous Guangzhou Jimei Group and working in my own interior…
Design Legend Interview
26 April 2017
Before becoming a furniture designer I was an interior designer with my own studio in Guangzhou, China for more than 10 years. I received my college education in the Interior Design Major of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Specifically I would try to answer what made me a furniture designer. During my work in sometime earlier I found it was uneasy to find ideal furniture that could fulfill my requirement, expected artistic imagery, etc. Thus I began to try to design furniture for my own interior designs and I found it successful. Later I designed more works and started my own brand Suyab Furniture, which is what you see today.
I design furniture with oriental aesthetic, but they totally look modern and can fit into modern daily life. I have been seeking something different from my Chinese designer fellows. They have tried to do something more traditional, using red sandal woods and traditional symbols more frequently than I do.
Never ever think about copying. Always think about innovation. In that way you make good products with market differentiation. This is not just idealism, it is also realistic in business sense.
Good designer is someone who works with sufficient professional skills and knowledge, and works in remarkable work ethics. Under that condition they provide notable works. However, great designer will be someone who can foresee potential changes in people's life, needs, and can bring not only fulfillment but also innovation and empowerment to these things.
I think good design really can pay attention to people's daily life need, cultural and spiritual concerns.
Yes, as good design can bring goodness into people's life, it is both humanistic and business concerns to invest in good design.
My secret recipe of success is I must pay sufficient attention to the details of my furniture. It is always in detailed works that I can promote the quality and vintage sense in my furniture.
I really enjoy Tony Chi's work. Tony Chi is a master on outlining oriental sense only through artistic imagery but not exaggeratedly using popular oriental symbols.
I think designer can improve themselves by studying rhetorical skills, making design is like speaking in some way. You try to choose proper "words" or "phrases" to make your design to convey meanings, aesthetics with excellence. Rhetorical skills in designing can be very tactical.
I don't know (laugh), maybe to become a gourmet? I had grown up in Foshan which is a place with a lot of good foods!
I think design is a tiny entrepreneurial activity process, that you will involve a lot of ideas, use of materials, use of craft techniques and allocation of resources to achieve aesthetic goal and to benefit the life of user or customer. It is really a process more than entertaining yourself, but also bringing goodness unto other people in the world.
I would like to thank my wife Catherine, she works in building our brand. Without her effort we couldn't make this far. It was also she introduce me to take part in this competition.
Good Designs really make a difference to human society. Some designs facilitate and empower people with handicaps. Some designs provide women and young people with more freedom. Some designs help people with specific culture background to get closer to their culture heritage.
I am working on opening some more retail stores in China and trying to improve my business's productivity.
Wow, I don't really use any software, I actually enjoy hand drawing.
Designer Interview
26 April 2017
I graduated from the Interior Design major of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and became an interior designer at first, and worked as this role for more than 10 years. At sometime earlier than now I started my own furniture brand Suyab Design. I started to design my own furniture because in my past experience in making interior design I found it difficult to find ideal furniture available in market.
I had dreamed to become a designer when I was still a teenage. I enjoy studying things and finding out their unlimited possibilities for creation. That process can be extraordinarily attracting and good for its own sake, and to become a designer would just help me to engage in the process with a large portion of my life.
I had dreamed to become a designer when I was still a teenage. I enjoy studying things and finding out their unlimited possibilities for creation. That process can be extraordinarily attracting and good for its own sake, and to become a designer would just help me to engage in the process with a large portion of my life.
My company is called Suyab Design Limited Company. It used to be merely an interior design studio and we worked on designing private villas, clubs and chambers. After I started my own brand Suyab Furniture, my studio was upgraded and registered as a company. Now besides interior designs, we also design modern furniture with oriental aesthetic, and we produce them in our own factory too.
Design is a micro perspective entrepreneurial activity process that will involve the use of ideas, the allocation of resources and materials and the use of craft techniques to bring goodness, benefits, empowerment, and facilitation to common people in society.
I think I don’t really have one specific favorite material. I tend to appreciate many types of material because many of them have their own unique intrinsic beauty. Each unique material has it own proper way to be used or to combine with other materials.
I almost feel creative all the time. During last two years I drew out as many as furniture as quickly as I can, made them into series. It was a smooth process and I enjoyed it!
I paid many attentions on designing details. In both my interior and furniture works I had spent plenty of time to work on their detail elements so as to achieve expected effects.
I simply feel joyful and at ease when doing design, because this is what I love to do from the beginning (laugh).
Before reaching to the feeling of accomplishment I have to struggle for a little while (laugh), because even when the design is realized I still going to pay plenty of time to adjust their details so as to obtain perfection. Only after all these the great joy then falls upon me (laugh).
First of all the design should relate to people's real life.
Only when the design matters to people’s life and appears in their daily activities, the design’s beauty and function can be known and experienced. Otherwise people don’t know what it is.
Only when the design matters to people’s life and appears in their daily activities, the design’s beauty and function can be known and experienced. Otherwise people don’t know what it is.
As mentioned above it is whether it matters people’s real life is the number one aspect.
The second aspect is whether the design can rhetorically use simple lines and combinations of materials and techniques to express decent concerns.
The second aspect is whether the design can rhetorically use simple lines and combinations of materials and techniques to express decent concerns.
I think designer should be considerate on the materials' effect on user's health and they should choose sustainable resource to build, to manufacture their designs.
My last exhibition was Shenzhen International Furniture Exhibition in March of this year, just right after I went to Design Shanghai 2017. I want to hold my next exhibition in Shenzhen as a part of follow-up works for winning the A’ Design Award Competition. Last year A’ had an exhibition of winners in Shenzhen International Industrial Design Fair.
In designing furniture, my inspirations come from Chinese Ming Dynasty furniture, Scandinavian furniture and Italian furniture.
In designing interiors, my inspirations come from Tony Chi’s design.
I do research regularly to feed my creativity, I take study on multiple materials to see the possibilities to mix them together.
In designing interiors, my inspirations come from Tony Chi’s design.
I do research regularly to feed my creativity, I take study on multiple materials to see the possibilities to mix them together.
But my designs are basically rooted in oriental aesthetics, but I do not use traditional symbols to tell that they are oriental. The oriental sense is hidden behind the technique of using colors, combination of materials and use of craft techniques.
I live in Guangzhou currently, which is city with thousands of years history.
It does have a rich cultural tradition. It is also a port city in the ancient time so if you look back to the history you find merchants and travelers from Europe and Middle East came here for business or other life opportunity. Many cultural traditions gathered in here and they mixed together, and transformed into something new.
So the way I think about my designs is: I want them to have international / cosmopolitan characters but without scarifying our own culture roots.
It does have a rich cultural tradition. It is also a port city in the ancient time so if you look back to the history you find merchants and travelers from Europe and Middle East came here for business or other life opportunity. Many cultural traditions gathered in here and they mixed together, and transformed into something new.
So the way I think about my designs is: I want them to have international / cosmopolitan characters but without scarifying our own culture roots.