Category Archives: design ethics

High-end Commercial?! Yeah Right!

Posted on by

When I saw or heard the word high-end commercial, retail or hospitality design, I always laughed inside. I was fortunate to have the opportunities to design all these spaces mentioned above, and based on my own experiences, I have only seen really high-end residential projects, but for the commercial, retail or hospitality projects I worked on, they were called high-end, but actually they weren’t.

I had the chance to design a client’s own residence and his jewelry shop, the client demanded the quality of the designs for these 2 projects must be “high-end”. So, I proposed a super luxurious wall sconce for his 12K s.f. residence which cost 8 grand a pop, I proposed 8 but the client loved it and said I want 10. Meanwhile, I selected a nice wall sconce for his jewelry shop, with the retail project in mind, I picked an $650 sconce, and proposed 8, the client loved it but asked me to find something looks similar but less expensive, and I did, the new selection cost $500, he again said “I loved it! but is it possible to look for a similar one with lower price?” I replied “with the look and quality, the price is the best and it meets the budget, and I don’t think I can find anything else with this design but less expensive.” So, the client said “then find someone to knock it off.” I am the designer who hates people copy other people’s designs, so I lied to him saying I couldn’t have the sconce knocked off in cheaper price, so I had to find another one. The final selection was $450 a pop, less expensive, visible medium-low level craftsmanship, but it looked very similar to the very first $650 one, and the client was very happy and said “Good job! It is $400 saving right there!”

I totally understand where he was coming from, because if that project was a 300-room hotel, $5 less expensive stuff per room will generate $1500 savings, this kind of mentality for commercial, hospitality and retail projects makes a lot of sense, and it is smart and no-brainer, but if you call it “high-end”? I totally disagree. Well, maybe the look, definitely not the quality or craftsmanship.

 

Asking an American Designer to Copy American Designs

Posted on by

When I was working in Shanghai few years ago, I was constantly asked by both the clients and employers to copy other people’s designs from the interior design magazines from the US, and the funniest part was one of the employers asked me to copy a project which was designed by me and published in the magazine few years back in the US. Stop asking me to copy American designers’ designs because I am an American designer! I had my interior design college education in the US. I also had all of my interior design work experiences in the US. Nationality wise, I am also an American. Do I need to dye my hair blonde or wear blue contact lenses in order to convince you that?! Show me some respect, You Asians!!

Taking Advantage of Homelessness

Posted on by

Just read an article about what interior designers can do to help homeless people. Oh! Dear! Here we go again. I just read about a fashion designer designed clothes for homeless people to keep them warm, and a hair stylist helped cutting homeless people’s hairs, the fashion designer and hair stylist instantly became internet sensations, and both their popularities and businesses boomed as the result. What a good business strategy! But please stop using homeless people to be your free commercial actors or guinea pigs. Interior Designers!! If you really want to help homeless people, give them jobs as design interns at your firms, how’s that? No related education or credential? Well, you tell me how many interior designers out there were majored in interior design in colleges, and how many of them passed NCIDQ exam or are licensed and State registered?! Believe me, offering them jobs at your firms will be more helpful than design their “high-end” homeless shelters. Stop giving starving African children expensive toys!! It’s the same theory. They need food!

How to make Introverts’ voices heard at work?

Posted on by

After reading the article about Introversion and how to work with introverts, it did enlighten me and helped me understanding who I am. It also made me feel more eased about some criticisms from my ex-employers such as “Why didn’t you say anything if you saw that at the job site?”, “Why didn’t you mention that at the meeting?”, “Why didn’t you come up with any idea during the brainstorming?” I fully understand the speaker wanted to empower introverts and to encouraged them to make their voices heard. However, I also started to understand one of the reasons most of the business owners and the team leaders were extroverts was because introverts usually chose to pass on their leadership roles as the speaker mentioned in the video, and I realized it would not be easy for the introverts’ voices heard if most of the decision makers at work were extroverts.

In my 16 years of interior design career, I had worked for 7 employers, and all of them were extroverts who were very good at socializing and networking. I remember one of my ex-employers said to me “This is how my company is running, and if you don’t like it, you are very welcome to leave.” after I made some constructive suggestions. I also suggested the other one of my ex-employers not to do 100% open office floor plan for the new office we were about to move in but was quickly turned down.

So, I feel making introverts’ voices heard is like asking billionaires to give up half of their wealth and pass onto the poor, and we all know it is very hard for those who have the power to release the power, just like what happened at the brainstorming meetings led by the manager in one of my previous jobs, you only could hear the extroverts such as the sales from the sales departments, and the PRs who spoke out loud about their ideas and see the designers’ (all of us were introverts) ideas got overwhelmed, and the manager who had the authority to hush the sales or the PRs allowed it happened and never let the designers express their opinions because the manager was also an extrovert. So, I appreciate the articles and speeches out there that have raised the awareness of the existence of introverts, but if you expect the introverts’ voices will be heard or the “silent revolution” will take place, think again.

Service Related Businesses in China

Posted on by

In order to have good service related businesses, you must have more polite and nice people in the society. After decades of prosperous economy development driven by mostly manufacturing in China is slowing down, China is trying to promote service related businesses at home such as senior caring facilities, hotel and restaurants…etc. You might think China will have no problem to make this smooth transition since the economy development in last few decades in China was extremely fast. Well, I will say it will take China much longer time to have top notched service related businesses in all spectra, and the very reason is because of China’s super fast economy development.

The extremely fast economy development in China has elevated many people to middle class, millionaire or billionaire status, but it failed to elevate most people’s sense of responsibility, integrity or etiquette in the same time. In contrary, the fast boomed economy made people become greedy money chasers, they became very selfish, rude, and hostile to others. Everyone became everyone else’ competitors, For being successful, stepping on other people’s backs in order to climb to the top becomes necessary. People lost the compassion towards others because they were not considered as human anymore but competitors, and if they are my competitors, why should I treat them nicely? Having that in mind, you won’t be surprised to see people often arguing on the streets, pushing people hard and fighting for seats on subway trains, or cutting in lines in China, and you will also be shocked to hear people say thank you or excuse me over there.

Therefore, when you go into the stores to ask the clerks directions or any other questions without buying anything, the only answer you will get is “I do not know.” No extra assistance or advice. It will make you feel those clerks are so unhelpful or unfriendly and you just do not feel like going back to the store as customers in the future. While visiting restaurants in China, most greetings sound very superficial and machine-like. The waiters will sit you down and disappear, you usually need to yell at the waiters and tell them you are ready to place orders. Otherwise, you will sit there forever and no one will come to you to take orders. I even encountered waiters who ignored me on purpose when I waved and asked them to come to take my order in many occasions, and if you keep yelling loudly, then you will see the waiters coming to you with very stinky faces.

On the end, you can give those waiters, waitresses or clerks any training you want, if they are not nice people naturally, they will always treat their customers with fake smiles, machine-like greetings, ignorance, or big attitudes. You can build infrastructures in few months but you won’t be able to make people friendly or nice in just one generation. Having top notched service related businesses in China? well, wait for another 20 years.

Will China’s Economy Reform Fail?

Posted on by

When China’s GDP growth downed from double digits to 7 something percent last year, it signaled China’s economy is slowing down. Increasing labor cost and tightened regulations slowly expelled the labor intense industry out of China. Similar to what happened in Taiwan in the late 90’s and throughout 00′, China needs to transform its labor intense industry to high-tech industry. Unfortunately, Taiwan failed the transformation, and is suffering the consequences, low job growth and stalled salary. Will China follow Taiwan’s step and fail the challenge? Very likely.

As an interior designer, my job can not be classified as high-tech, but it is not hard to predict why China will fail the economy reform to transform its economy by observing how the interior designers operate in China. When interior designers start to work on a new project and prepare for client presentation, unlike what we do in the States,  we research the available materials and start to sketch out the ideas, Chinese interior designers look for project photos on the design magazines or websites, and then copy with minor tweaking the designs from the photos they found. Why do they do that?! Isn’t it violating the copy rights and professional ethics, or at least personal integrity? No, not to Chinese designers. In fact, they are encouraged to copy others’ design ideas, why? well, because the clients in China love to rush. If you think some clients in the US like to rush to get things done, the clients in China are 1000 times worse. If a project needs 1 year to complete in the States, it will be completed in China in 3 months. Super fast work flow forces Chinese designers to work overtime constantly, under the pressure, it becomes luxury for designers to have time to be creative and think about the ideas of their own. Long working hours also impairs the designers’ ability to innovate. Therefore, most of interior design ideas in China are copied.

Ok, no big deals, right? just copy an interior design idea! so?! people still make money! Well, Chinese high-tech workers work the same way! cell phone companies, automobile companies, computer companies, website companies, and defense insdustry….These high tech companies copied whatever from foreign companies without creating their own indigenous high technology, so they will always lead from behind.

When the US built the stealth fighter jets like F-22 and F-35, China followed and also built J-20 stealth fighter jets with lots of “borrowed” technology and designs. Many of you might think “see! China is strong and advanced! They can also build stealth fighter jets!” but for me , the real strong country is the one that came up with the idea – “stealth” at the first place. Now, the United States is the only country in the world has operational stealth fighter jets in service and maintains the air superiority. Innovation makes the United States lead.

So, if Chinese clients do not change the way that they want everything done by yesterday, excessive over-time working will keep impairing Chinese workers’ innovation and creativity, and China’s economy reform will be doomed to fail.

Who should foresee the design trends?

Posted on by

I have always received the newsletters from various interior design related organizations and magazines that published many articles about kitchen design trends and green design trends…etc. In my opinion, these articles were only trying to market and sell products rather than predicting any trend.

Kitchen companies sell contemporary Minimalist kitchen cabinets predict Minimalist design trend will be in. Furniture companies sell traditional style furniture say the traditional style trend is coming back and on the rise. The paint companies say the certain colors will be popular in the next coming season, and the paint company happens to be the only one sells those colors they claimed to be in style. Since when the design trends are predicted by design product related businesses?! Shouldn’t design professionals be the ones to predict the design trends?!

Full Of It!

Posted on by

I have heard a lot of Chinese designers said they are the best in the world. Well, if you are so great as you said, how come the reference photos or the mood imageries you put on your project presentation PPTs are the projects mostly done by American or European designers? and how come we do not use Chinese designers’ project photos as our mood imageries for project presentations in the US? So, if you say Chinese designers are good at working long hours and fast pace, I agree, but if you say Chinese designers are creative or innovative, I totally disagree.

Studying Abroad Necessary?

Posted on by

I heard an educator in China said the other day on TV that he encouraged the Chinese students to go to the US to study because American education encourages entrepreneurship and innovation, and it will be very helpful for the Chinese students who will return to China to work. Yes. I agreed with the first part but I laughed about the second part of his words.

Yes. American education system does encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, but will that be helpful for the Chinese students who decided to return to China after graduate? I doubt it.

First of all, for doing successful business in China, it will not be enough if you only have the skills or knowledge, or so-called entrepreneurship, you also need to know how to use “unconventional” ways to establish good relationship with the local government officials, how to socialize with and please the clients and government officials at the restaurants or clubs outside of regular business hours, and how to cut the corners and game the system in almost every step of the way, and I don’t think these are the entrepreneurship the American education system teaches.

Second, innovation, what an easy word to say but hard to do in China. In that part of the world, everything is done twice or three times faster than in the US. A building in the US that needs 3 years to build can be built in China in 8 months. Speed is above anything. How can you innovate anything high-tech or well thought through in very short period of time?! Moreover, working extra long hours is also the norm in China. How can you innovate when you are always exhausted?! not mentioning disrespect of copy rights and intelligence property will always kill your spirit of innovation.

So, the students do learn the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in the US, but neither of them will be useful in China.

 

Fight against Copy Cats

Posted on by

As an American interior designer worked in China, I know too well about the culture of copying someone else’ designs over there. You might think the designers in China who copy other people’s designs are not creative,  but in fact, I have worked with many creative designers in China, so how come copying designs become so popular and it turns into the business norm for the interior design industry? Here are the reasons:

  • Extremely unreasonable deadlines: People around the world all have witnessed China’s rapid economy growth in the past two decades, there was a reason for that. If you can move from one project to the next faster, it means the more money you make, to both the design firms and the clients, so the time schedules set by the clients and the design firms usually are very tight compared we do projects in the US. You can easily find a 1-year long project gets done in 5 months in China. As we all know, a quick design idea might only take few minutes to generate, but a very well thought through design concept takes time, and there is no such luxury in China to allow designers really thinking deeper, so the best way to cut the corner is to copy or tweak other people’s designs.
  • Client’s requests: Unlike most of the clients I have worked with in the US who appreciated my creativity to come up with the ideas that no one else had ever thought about, the clients in China often demanded their designers to copy other people’s designs from the design magazines they read, the hotels they stayed or a store they visited. The most funny thing was one of the Chinese clients wanted me to copy a design from a design magazine and it turned out the project he wanted me to copy from was one of the projects I designed when I was working for another designer in the US.
  • Lacking 3D perception: Most of the clients I worked with or the employers I worked for in the US could visualize my design ideas simply with a free-hand sketch or a little better made hand sketches for the initial design presentations, but in China, because many clients and the designers alike never had any art or design related training, they just can’t visualize the designs without seeing a super realistic 3D color rendering done by the computer program like 3D Studio Max. As everyone knows, it is very time-consuming to generate a 3D Studio Max drawing, it is just not cost-effective, especially for the initial client meetings. So, looking for reference photos on-line or on magazines and using them as part of the design presentation becomes extremely popular and cost-effective way in China to conduct the initial client meetings. If the clients like the designs in the project reference photos, the designers are forced to go along with the design concepts or details done by other designers showing in the photos which indirectly turns the interior designers into interior copiers or interior tweakers. You might ask why those designers do not use their own old project photos? well, they do! but those old projects were also copied or tweaked from other designers’ projects. Even if some creative designers in China came up with some great ideas, their designs never could be approved by their employers because their employers could not visualize the designs without a computer generated color rendering either, and no one has time to make their design concepts in 3D Studio Max just for trying to persuade their bosses to approve the designs so that they could present them to the clients,  as the result, many great creative designs never even got the chance to reach the clients before being blocked by their employers. Frustrated, many designers in China start to look for reference photos for design ideas instead of creating their own.
  • Excessive overtime working: Because the super fast paced work environment in China, many designers are forced to work overtime constantly, 60 or even 70 weekly working hours are very common, the fatigue and stress caused by long working hours inhibited and even further damaged the designers’ creativity.

There are so many creative individuals in China who want to create but can’t. They are frustrated, over worked, and under paid. So, instead of criticizing the designers in China for being copy cats, we should blame those few on the top who made the designers copy cats.