TOKYO DESIGN CENTER
Intern Designer, Tokyo, Jan-Mar 2010
This overseas design internship is supported by Ministry of Education, 2010, Taiwan. The intern company is bascially organized by Tokyo Design Center, which concentrated on design consultation, design promotion and industry assistance. To extend the variety of internship, I also assigned to several companies which are associated with Tokyo Design Center. There were RF. YAMAKAWA, Open House, Japan Life Design Systems, and Tsukuba University as following description respectively.
Tokyo Design Center
Design Consultation Center
Tokyo Design Center is a design consultation center, engaging in design promotion, exhibition and industry assistance. Tokyo Design Center also integated with Japan Design Consultation Association, which is the biggest design consulting service center in Japan. They provide various service related to design business. I was an intern designer to participate these tasks. Moreover, I was also sent to different design studios and companies to join their work. In the End, I came back to Tokyo Design Center to summarize my performance and results of different institutes.
R.F. YAMAKAWA is a furniture design studio, which established since 1962. It is a global design studio which has several sub-companies located in U.S, Italy, Shanghai, and Tokyo. They offers the products which originated from the collaboration of Asian and European designers. They aim to build the goal of "LIFE FULL of DESIGN", specifically the combination of functionality and simplicity. In this period, I engaged marketing research, idea inspiration, and user behavior observation. I tried to sketch everything for discussion by my viewpoint. Moreover, the senior designer also taught practical experience related to manufacture limitation or the method of marketing design research. In the end, I proposed a complete furniture design project which is called "Behavior Design", to re-define the relationship between user and furniture.
Open House was found since 1987, established by Mr. Fumikazu Masuda. He is also an professor who teaches in Tokyo Zokei University. Open House is engaging on environmentally-conscious design and helping the promotion of local industries through counseling to product development of small and medium entreprises all over Japan. In thies period, I mainly engaged "The Sustainable Project", which is the system integtated with all kinds of eco-material, and designers can use the system as their reference when they make the decision in the final stage. My task is based on translation of Eco-Material document and built these data into system. Moreover, we also participated the local industries to assist their product development and visited the Japanese traditional crafts such as wood-inlaying and bamboo bending crafts.
Japan Life Design Systems (JLDS) is an advertising design company, which is established since 2008. The president is Mr. Masakazu Taniguchi who is a person combine with commercial thinking and artistic philosophy. "Life Design" means life style design, they aim to propose various new life styles for Japanese people or foreign tourists in the way of commercial layout or media advertisement. In this company, I was asked to observe the shopping behavior of foreign tourists who came to shopping center near the station in Tokyo city. To analyze the problem they faced and proposed an commercial idea for them in the shopping center.
Tsukuba University is well-known university in Japan, it is an university city which integrated with Tsukuba Medical Center and Tsukuba Treatment Center in the Ibaraki of northwestern Japan. "ADP" means Art & Design Product, it is the annual industry-academy cooperation project supported by Japanes government. Students can use their creativity and inspiration to assist local industries or environment. They could create various opportunities to activate local area. Most of ADP porjects was directed by Prof. Takashi Hasumi. He was the chief designer in Nissan Car company for 20 years, and now he teaches in Product Design Department in Tsukuba University. The topic I was assigned to assist is "ADP for Tsukuba Hospital", which is aim to change the atmosphere in the hospital. It was an ongoing project maintained by their graduate and college students. In the end, I also proposed my ideas to improve the atmosphere of Tsukuba Hospital by observation, participation, and visualization.
COMPAL Electronics, INC.
Product Designer, Taipei, Oct 2010 - Nov 2011
I was an product designer in Experience Design Center, COMPAL Electronics, INC., from Oct 2010 to Nov 2011, mainly engaging in notebooks / tablets/ All-in-One PC design. In addition, I also participated User Experience analyis, Color-Material-Finish analysis, Conceptual Design approach, Mass Manufacture Management and so on. To be a professional designer, I learned and master lots of practical experience related to design thinking, manufacturing process, design research method, and idea visualization in COMPAL.
Experience Center
Notebook / PC / Tablet Design
Conceptual Design approach
3D modeling & rendering
Prototype & Mock-up making
User experience analysis
Color-Material-Finish analysis
COMPAL Electronics, INC. is the second largest Notebook & PC manufacturer company in the world. It has the leading status of OEM (Original-Equipment-Manufacture) & ODM (Original-Design-Manufacture) in Taiwan technology industry. In addition, COMPAL has been taking firm strides in development of the 5Cs (Cloud, Connecting, Computing, Communication, and Consumer). Moreover, COMPAL has established business sites in China, U.S, Brzail, Poland and Mexico so as to provide versatile and speedy services to live up to its reputation as world renowned brand in ODM.