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星期四, 一月 18, 2007

Read 2 design books today, 1 on italian design and 1 on a famous japanese contemporary space designer whose name i cannot remember. The initial reason for reading them was to spur and "regain" the inertia to start work again since i'm going to turin SOON. I thought i should start reading some related articles and get back on the ball...yet to my horror the more i read the more discouraged i become.
It dawned upon me that perhaps i could never mark my stand here in Singapore.
My conversation with a senior yesterday makes me really depressed; somehow i'm depressed that people in singapore don't value design as much as other countries do. I'm depressed that designers are the lower-beings as compared to other professions, designers are the shortchanged people, the targets of budget plans, and most depressing of all - they are undervalued.
I start myself what do i want to achieve or rather what do i want to do? I know i want to do design things that i like...but how? The italians and japanese have their prevailing style, they have a rich history in design and culture that is distinctively THEIRS and thus original in that sense. But we poor singaporean "designers-wannabe"...where do we start? who do we learn from? what is our inspiration and what is our style? There is a lack of coherence and authenticity in relation to the things i've come up with and the things i do. I believe good design needs to draw from deep cultures and from a strong unique identity that belongs to the designer himself. Yet we are deprived of that. How can we survive in a society that does not value the things we do?

nothing else matters on1/18/2007 12:16:00 上午

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