Simple but Edgy is now Showing at Philips Design!

I have been invited and accepted a position at Philips Design Singapore as The Senior Design Manager in charge of the Home Cinema Sound, Home Video and Home Controller business portfolios. It is a design management position which finds me managing design programs for internal Philips clients.

I’m sure there will be many exciting times to come!

I designed the slide show not as a Design definition exercise. Far from that. In fact designers are still debating on what design really is. This presentation was really more about looking at design on a holistic level and how design like the subject itself is constantly evolving. Not only that, the focus of the presentation was more about creating a design mindset for inventors to understand what design can do for them.

After almost 5 1/2 years and 5 international design awards later, I have decided to resign from my position as Head of Industrial Design and Senior Manager at Nakamichi’s Regional HQ in Singapore. Today the 8th August or 08/08/08 was my last day. The decision to leave was a tough one, but I believe it is time for me to move on.

While writing this, I suddenly realized that it also happens to be a cosmically auspicious day to the Chinese, not to mention the start of the Olympics! “Eight” in Mandarin rhymes with “Fa” which means luck and prosperity.

So while I’m pretty sad leaving behind some great colleagues, it looks to me like a happy ending that is going to lead into a flying start!

Just before Chinese New Year (in early Feb), I ended my year long sabbatical in Sydney by moving my family unit back to Singapore. We have all been dealing with adjustment issues and are doing our best to settle down and get a routine going again. After which, I think it is time to focus on my career.

In other news, I finally bought my first car! Just like my watches, it has taken me a while to find a car that I’m really happy with. Not only that it was delivered on my 35th Birthday! How nice.

On a final note, I’ve been nominated to be part of the organizing committee for the ICSID Singapore conference in 2009. That should be exciting!

If all these are a sign of things to come, 2008 will be a great year!

My team and I received a “Good Design Award” from the prestigious Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design for our Nakamichi Phoenix Electrostatic Speaker. The product has since been renamed and repositioned as part of the Dragon audiophile product range. This product was also featured in Wired Magazine issue 15.03

This win was particularly sweet, as it was a product that we recommended, pushed, and developed as part of our ongoing research into trends, consumer markets and technology. This speaker is also a cumulative milestone example of our evolving design language strategy that I had mapped out for the brand and product category about 3 years ago.

Finally we are 1 of the 6 Good Design Awards that was given out to designers and manufacturers from Singapore. Still along way to go compared to the 270 haul from the US, still, this is a great boost for the budding Industrial Design Industry in Singapore.

EDIT: Well its pretty much all up and running. I have still some tweaking to do but its all there. The Portfolio samples are up, the About page updated and I’ve also added a Contact page to make communications much easier. Do Enjoy surfing the website.

It is finally here, and what a rush it has been! Not only is this one of the highlights of my social-entrepreneurship endeavour in promoting Asian design, it’s one of the big reasons why I have been so busy during my down time in the last couple of months!

Together with the help of a wonderful team, we have officially launched the Dandelion On-line Exhibition featuring work of designers from Asia and beyond.

It was really great experience, and interestingly enough it felt more like a bunch of friends getting together, hanging out and showing our best Industrial Design work.

Oh and before I forget, I like to also extend a big thanks to all the people who submitted their work to the Exhibition! More importantly, I like to personally thank py for all her hard work in helping me get the exhibition up and running.

It was a great process getting to the end, and we hope you enjoy the Exhibition as much as we did setting it up. Please do let me know what you think?

Link to Dandelion On-line Exhibition.

I’ve been to China before, but not the Nanjing area, so I am looking forward to see a different side of this planet and perhaps some pictures of the city scape soon. I know I’ll have a 5 hour wait transiting Hong Kong so perhaps some blogging time there.

Even more bags for my eye bags now on the “red-eye” flights.

Mario Writes:

To build some greater perspectives on product design in the modern age, I’ve invited DT of Design Sojourn to a little chat about the subject. DT helps build objectives, strategies and development plans for consumer electronics firms across Asia. He’s been a pioneer in promoting the field of Industrial Design, in many more regards than simply admiring fanciful oeuvres d’art et leurs aspects fonctionnels (French for art and functional objects). He reaches out to students and other professionals alike in sharing theory, trends, and best practices in the workplace and beyond, while celebrating the contributions of others to the field.

DT, thanks for stopping by and leaving some feedback on my post New Product Design Strategy. I feel that I’ve barely scratched the surface on this field, as most of what I’ve come to learn has been from my own experiences with CPG manufacturers, some friends, and my PDMA Handbook . What other kinds of strategies or considerations should marketers and product developers be making these days?

Check it out the full interview transcript and write up at my Design Sojourn blog.

Edit: Here are the scanned images and the detailed review after. The design was inspired by premium leather ladies handbags and the tactile textures found on it.