Theme: A-TALKS DESIGN chats with The China International Cultural Industry Fair- “Encourage for DESIGN in 2010”
Interviewee: Bill Chen, General Manager of Asis Furniture Co., Ltd
A-CHINA：hello, Mr. Chan, thank you so much for accepting our interview. We know that Asis is a design- focused brand, and we get to know that Asis just attended the “100% design exhibit in Shanghai”. So, could you tell us the light spot of your brand and products in the year of 2009?
Bill Chen: Asis is focusing on original design. In 2009, the shining point is we will cooperate with a well-known Italian designer to design a new product, which is concerned about the humanity. And in the future, our design will forward this direction.
A-CHINA：So, would you keep on cooperating with the Italian designer in the future?
Bill Chen: Maybe. You know, it needs a right moment to keep on cooperating with designers in Europe or abroad.
A-CHINA：we seldom heard of the word “Design & Research”, could you explain it to us?
Min Chen: Well, “creation” has been hot recently at home, including government and the local; most of news events are stunt, while only few of them have great influence on economy. For example, there is a Ten thousand signature campaign. At present, many products produce for produce, less of them are on consider of human behavior, social environment and humanistic concern. And the design we pursue now is base on a deep understanding on human and society, that’s why we call “Design & Research”. The new chair we launch this year is having an overall consideration in terms of humanities, product value and humanized engineering. In abroad, we can find that many products are full of connotation, that’s because designers have studied a lot on them, not just created by a whim.
A-CHINA：so, next year, some connotation will be injected into the products?
Bill Chen: That is what we are working on now. In the past two years, we did some researches and the results will be shown in 2010. Besides, we are starting building our humanized engineering data base, so that there is a criteria for our designs. We hope we can do better on this matter, and we also hope our design can make a sustainable growth to us.
A-CHINA：In your opinion, How does Design influence on our life and culture?
Bill Chen: A big influence, I think. We studied on our lifestyle and then make a conclusion from past and now, so as to design a product which conforms to the time. That’s also our designers’ duties and responsibilities-- to find the rules from these studies, and then to improve our life quality and provide a better and higher-quality product for customers.
A-CHINA：The theme of this interview is “take courage for design, 2010”. Could you tell us your declaration of it? Or just tell us your idea on design in one simple sentence?
Bill Chen: it surely needs courage. In China, it lacks lots of talents making the original design, all walks of life courage for the original design. For an enterprise or a designer, we need to courage for ourselves once we decide to take the original design as an important element for future development.
A-CHINA： we also hope Asis insists on its original design and extend its design idea, and focus on the level of socially humanized, not just focus on surface
Bill Chen: Yes, and we hope our design has the quality of healthy and sustainable.
Key words: ASIS Furniture, Min Chan, A-TALKS, CICIF