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The Future of Design: The Fusion of East and West

Throughout the ages designs that have changed the face of the world have originated in Asia. From Shen Nong's first set of herbal medicines in 100 BC to the invention of paper by Cai Lun in 105AD, Chinese designers have been pointing the way forward and creating products that are practical, beautiful, innovative and life enhancing.

Modern Chinese people are, themselves, sometimes surprised to realise that contemporary agriculture, shipping, astronomical observatories, decimal mathematics, paper money, umbrellas, wheelbarrows, multi-stage rockets, brandy and whiskey, the game of chess, and much more, all originated from China. Early Chinese travellers took these discoveries around the globe; today the influence of China on the western world is no less marked.

The reverse is also true. Asian people who have made new homes in far flung countries around the world are embracing western culture and ideals. They are merging their traditional values and heritage with western ideas, to create modern day solutions for the crucial moral and spiritual questions facing humanity.

Today the fusion of east and west is nowhere more evident than in Hong Kong, Asia's gateway city. Due in part to its colonial heritage, Hong Kong has long been a melting pot for a broad variety of activities, making mutual understanding and interaction between its different cultures a normal part of everyday life.

As the modern day world continues to look for inspiration in ancient Chinese traditions, multicultural Hong Kong is the ideal forum for this year's World's Outstanding Chinese Designer award. The Award aims to reach out to Chinese designers across the globe, creating a pool of shared knowledge and experience based on common origins. The organiser's vision is that a ripple started in Hong Kong will form a tide reaching every corner of the world where Chinese people are designing. This process will help identify role models who can inspire young Chinese designers wherever they may be.

Judging Criteria

Criteria was based upon three levels: personal, social and industry :

Personal
The winner should be an established figure in his discipline with a high quality of work, service and notable achievements. He must also demonstrate his long-term efforts and total commitment in the design field.

Industry
The winner should contribute to the design industry either through academic exploration or in-the-field applications, educational involvement or research studies. The winner must have demonstrated his commitment to design training at a national or an international level.

Social
The winner's design should have a positive social impact on everyday living and environmental concerns. He must demonstrate a social consciousness and responsibility; be human-oriented and possess a positive mindset for creating designs that enhance the welfare of people and society.

Judging Panel

Winner of World's Outstanding Chinese Designer 2008

Raman Hui

Raman Hui has dedicated over twenty years of his life to the art of animation. As a director, supervising animator and character designer of animated feature films, he maintains the importance of observing life in all its visual and emotional majesty. For Hui, the aim to imaginatively re-create spontaneity of natural movements is what makes animation such a challenging, but wondrous art form. A painstaking respect for integrity of personality and behavior consistently underscores his talent to conceive universally relevant stories that are populated by casts of charismatic characters. Hui is a graphic design graduate of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His involvement with animation came through a chance discovery of the medium at the school, and would subsequently lead Hui to garner a Best Animation Award at the 1984 Hong Kong Independent Film Festival. Professionally, Hui began his animation career in Hong Kong at Quantum Studio where he worked as a traditional animator. Later, he moved to Canada to study computer animation at Sheridan College. Since 1989, Hui has been a major force at PDI/DreamWorks, guiding the animation team from commercials and shorts to feature films. He started at the studio by working on various commercials and award-winning short films, which led to his position as Lead Character Designer/Supervising Animator on PDI/DreamWorks’ first full-length computer-animated feature film, Antz. Hui has also served as Supervising Animator on the Academy Award® winning blockbuster Shrek, the Universal Studios theme park attraction Shrek 4D, and Shrek 2, which would become the highest grossing animated film of all time. For a year he was Director of Animation on DreamWorks Television & NBC’s prime time animated comedy Father of the Pride. He completed his first co-directing debut on Shrek the Third and recently directed the Kung Fu Panda animated short, Secrets of the Furious Five.