Abstract
Lei Bao is a Chinese National Senior Craft Artist and Special Researcher of Anhui Provincial Museum of Literature and History. He is committed to harmonising our culture with ecology. A wealth of experience in craftsmanship, mechanical engineering, product design and manufacturing, as well as a thorough knowledge of emerging and natural materials, will assist in integrating design and materials.
Lei Bao also appointed as Szeer Studio's design supervisor.
We had an interview with Lei and talk about his viewpoint about design, in four perspective: Learning, practicing, materiality, the future.
Learning Design
When did you first become interested in craft and design? What was the moment that made it clear to you what it means to be a craft designer?
Lei: Often, it is at the undergraduate level that a career direction is determined. I started my undergraduate studies in arts and crafts and design at a time when China had just entered the open market in 1982. A large number of household products were in need of upgrading, from product styling, to sales packaging, and even to sealing tape. In this period, I live in this province, there is an event closely related to arts and crafts and design: a former designer in our province, some of the folk traditional cross-stitch (Traditional cross-stitch) pattern decoration, re-combination of design to the printed fabric. This is called "luyang calico" (luyang calico) products, almost no process of production on the "innovation", but, just innovation in the printing pattern, in the market only blue and green solid colours in the era of cloth, in Beijing! However, in a time when there were only blue and green solid colours of cloth on the market, it was sold in Beijing's Wangfujing market, which was the biggest market at that time, and was sold out. This incident deeply made me feel that there is a huge space for upgrading and transforming the products for civilian life.
Are there any unique concepts in your study of design that have influenced you to this day?
Lei: In 1982, my first year of college, when the city of school there are two art colleges: in addition to our college of "arts and crafts design department". There was also the "Art Department" of Anhui Normal University. That year, our college invited a very famous master of arts and crafts design in China, Mr Zhang Daoyi, a professor at Nanjing University of the Arts. I still remember the first sentence of his lecture: "You have to remember that you are students of the Department of Arts and Crafts Design, and what is "Arts and Crafts"? What is "Arts and Crafts"? First, there is a product in the production process, and then you go to beautify the product. For example, a glass, first of all, there has been a glass production process, your responsibility is to start from the shape of the glass, to packaging a series of beautification.
What you have to do is: beautify the product on the basis of the production process, not pure art. If you forget the "product manufacturing process" and focus only on art, then you can transfer to the "art department" there.
Therefore, I believe that to be a qualified "arts and crafts designer", you first need to have a deep understanding of the production process and the process of the product you want to "design", in the manufacturing process of the product, beautify the product, incorporate your design concepts and aesthetics. Aesthetics. A completed product, try your best to beautify, so that it and the consumer, to produce more affinity, in order to promote the market integration of the product.
How should designers after graduation convert pure design thinking into commercial thinking? How to balance the commerciality of the market with your own artistry as a designer?
Lei: I remember the time when I just graduated, it was the time when China was expanding its export and docking with the world market in 1986. At that time, a large number of our export products, such as the plush toys I handled, were exported in great quantities. However, due to the serious lack of product packaging, they could not be docked with the supermarkets in the American market. They could only be sold cheaply in large quantities and in heaps on the stalls in the "free market". So, I did the design of supermarket packaging for plush toys, and won the excellent design award in the design competition in our province. I tried to transform the sales package on the basis of a finished toy to improve the market status of this commodity in order to get a higher market share. Of course, in the process of designing, I try to use my creativity and improve the aesthetic concept of packaging.
Lei learning Batik at the Buyi Dyeing Workshop in Anshun, Guizhou Province, China, 1986
A lot of great student work and novel ideas get forgotten on hard drives and under beds. But there's also a lot of student work that should be forgotten, so how do you go about sorting through it and discerning what's worth saving?
Lei: Every designer has experienced a young age, and his brain is always full of novel ideas and concepts. However, the first thing a designer should do after having a novel idea is to transform the design idea into an actual product and place it in the market to verify his new idea.
It is undeniable that a novel idea is not the same as a successful design. As a successful design, in addition to novel ideas, but also need to be "validated" by the commercial market.
The innovative design of "novelty" based on the premise of the "production process" is not a revolution in the "production process" of the product itself, and the market does not have the time to verify it. The market does not have the time to verify the revolution of the "product" itself, and it is not the job of art designers; for example, in the case of the glass mentioned above, it is often the job of engineers to modify the composition ratio and performance of glass products to produce another kind of glass product, and the job of "art and craft designers" is only to transform the glass product into another kind of glass product, which is often the job of engineers. This is often the work of engineers, while the work of "arts and crafts designers" is just to take some mature products, which have formed a stable market, and give them an innovative appearance modification, including, of course, packaging design that is more in line with the market.
In other words, the work of an "arts and crafts designer" is closer to making ordinary goods extraordinary than to creating an extraordinary good.
Lei's Batik Practice ‘Yin and Yang Letter Insertion, 1986.
Design Practically
How did "craft design" emerge in China in the 1980s and 1990s under unprecedented circumstances? As one of the first two (?) groups of young designers in China, how did you absorb foreign elements and create your own style? As one of the first two (?) groups of young designers in China, how did you absorb foreign elements and create your own style?
Lei: I just talked about the 1980s and 1990s. The production of a large number of commodities in China was undergoing a transformation from a Soviet-style planned economy to a market economy that was in line with Europe and the United States. The products served the planned economy and were transformed to serve the market economy and consumers. Referring to the question (1) said "Luyang flower cloth", 80 years ago, the market just need to complete the national cloth planning, can weave cloth, dyed in one or two fixed colours, has completed the work of the planned economy. As for printing, so that consumers like, has been no necessary work. And with the opening up of the market to production producers, it is no longer just about planning to finish the job. There are a considerable number of products, to be directly into the market and even exported to Europe and the United States market, to directly face the commercial market and consumer selection; then, a dyeing and printing products, and then a simple blue and grass green, is far from enough, how to make their own products can have a better sale, only rely on the design of the flower colour. This is the first step of "arts and crafts design" in China in recent years, as the phenomenon mentioned in question (1) is only a simple "arts and crafts design" in the early 80s to influence and improve the products.
More than 40 years have passed, now the product market, and the European and American market docking is becoming more mature, how to "product art design" into a variety of aesthetic concepts, that is, according to different products and for different markets, open the designers usually cultural literacy and aesthetic concepts of the brain, to the characteristics of the product itself as the basic elements, consumer-oriented, and then incorporate the concept of environmental protection, so that the product is new, beautiful and more suitable for the market. Orientation, and then into the concept of environmental protection, so that the product is novel, beautiful, more suitable for the market.
What are the biggest difficulties of being an artisan? And how did you overcome it? Which project makes you proud to be a designer?
Lei: The most important support, that is, the biggest obstacle to break through, as mentioned above: "arts and crafts designers" art design is often based on mature industrial products. And these mature products, often due to the limitations of the production process, which in turn limits the designer's novel design ideas.
This is often the case in the work of "designers of arts and crafts". The most intuitive aspect of interior design is how to achieve functional diversity in a limited space, while at the same time complying with the absolute prerequisites of interior space.
As designers, we can only develop innovative designs and maximise our designs in repeated mutual integration under limited premises.
As a craftsperson, how do you differentiate between design and art?
Lei: This problem, part (1) has been talked about: if you choose the "arts and crafts designer" as a professional, you must comply with the "production process" as the premise of the limited "creative space! "If you refuse to be bound, it is better to be an artist. In fact, experience tells us that even as a pure artist, it is impossible to really realise one's own wild and innovative ideas, and many artists' creations are limited by cost, space and artistic medium.
Materials and Design
How did the use of materials sway the design?
Lei: This question, analogous in question (6). The use of materials will definitely limit the creative space of the art designer. But this limitation is complementary and interdependent with the designer's artistic creation.
As an art designer, although it is not possible to master the use of materials as skilfully as engineers, art designers can try to participate in the production process of the product, in the process of co-operation with engineers or craftsmen, to find new points of inspiration, embodying a new artistic effect, in order to expand the art space of the art designers, and in the process of production, with the artist's vision, to find a new point of light, and the results are often unexpected.
How should emerging materials find their way in a world where capital is paramount? Is it possible for the world to return to the contributions and enthusiasm for "good design, good materials" that characterised the exploration of modern design in the 20th century?
Lei: The way forward for materials is often not determined by whether they are "new" or not. Rather, it is more a matter of "applicability". Some of the new materials operated by capital are only new but lack applicability. Because the capital operation is often the concept, these concepts are often short-lived, such as decades ago "new solar" materials, and these years the popularity of electric cars, the result is that although the concept is new, but more is not applicable and short-lived.
The reason I emphasise: "applicable". Because any new material is applied by designers and used by consumers. Therefore, there is never a good design because of new materials, only good designers, who use new materials and find a good market.
In fact, the world is still moving forward along the line of "good design, good materials". As long as good designers are designing, as long as the performance of the material has been brought into full play, and the result brings comfort to human beings. This must be an eternal route.
This is often the material determines the design, or designers in the use of "applicable" materials in the relationship. This issue, as in human history, "pottery" and "porcelain" relationship, porcelain, is undoubtedly relative to the pottery of new materials. But thousands of years, "pottery" and "porcelain" has been coexisting, some designers use pottery technology, production and design of suitable pottery; some designers use porcelain technology, production and design of suitable porcelain. The "new" and "old" are not contradictory in themselves, and we should not put them in opposition to each other in the first place.
Eco-friendly and green have become the trend and consensus of the international industry. In your opinion, what kind of change has this awareness brought to design? How do you think designers are doing at the moment?
Lei: The use of environmentally friendly, green materials must be the first choice of a modern designer. This should also include some environmentally friendly, green new materials and recycled materials. As mentioned in question (8), the use of materials. As a designer, it is more important to use "appropriate" materials, not just "convenient" materials. Excluding plastics, petrochemicals and other non-organic materials, designers have a wide range of materials to choose from. This green philosophy is not an obstacle for designers, but rather an opportunity for future-oriented designers to go back to thousands of years of organic material production processes and find new flashes of brilliance to produce innovative art and design.
What do you think are the most difficult points for the embodiment of new materials in design and how should they be overcome.
Lei: It's still a question of "applicable", new materials are not useless, such as many biodegradable organic 3D printing materials. This kind of new technology and new material opens up a broader space for art designers. Or the old problem: materials, only the applicability of the difference, there is no difference between the old and the new, the key is still the use of art designers, and the market for the application of the product.
Specifically, I saw in London, young designers designing ceramics, these young designers, using the "old" materials that have been around for nearly 5,000 years, still make new ceramics from the point of view of modelling and firing techniques.
The Future of Design
You are also conducting research on the cultural and historical aspects of the study as a contributing researcher at the Museum of Literature and History. Do you think new ideas and history are connected? How should designers learn from the old, what stereotypes should be discarded, and at what point should they be inspired and create something new?
Lei: As a researcher of history and culture, and also a person engaged in art and design, I have always emphasised that the new and the old are not opposites, and on this point, I suggest young designers to look at some of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts. In these manuscripts, there are a lot of relationships between the "old" materials of more than 500 years ago and advanced design concepts, and if we look at them more, we will be able to understand them. The "old" materials could not fully realise Leonardo da Vinci's extraordinary design concepts, but the extraordinary design concepts led to the development of new materials. However, this does not mean that we can not separate from the function of the existing materials to think of some unrealised designs, those extraordinary designs of Leonardo da Vinci are based on the "old" materials that he could master and use in that era.
By the way: I don't think there is a difference between the old and the new in the work of designers, only between the commonplace and ordinary and the excellent and extraordinary.
What do you think are the current design challenges in the world? What challenging design projects are you looking forward to in the world?
Lei: The current dilemma in the world of design is still the turbulence and tolerance of the market economy. Sometimes the market is tolerant enough to allow the work of a large number of young designers to slowly integrate with consumers in the marketplace. More often, however, the market is so tight that young designers cannot survive.
I suggest that young designers, or first take the market path of mature products. Fully understand the production process of the product in the actual work, while surviving, while accumulating experience in the actual work, in the light of the road, to find the actual innovation of the road.
The most challenging design projects lie in the opportunity for a designer to secure a specific product project from the beginning of the planning process, through the full planning of design, production, packaging, etc., until this product receives the market share in the marketplace that it deserves in the plan. This process, as simple as it may seem, is a cycle that involves a great deal of knowledge, judgement and creative work.
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