把生命交给设计 | China Startup: Designing a dream

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“We have IQ. We have EQ. But Chinese designers lack an Aesthetics Quotient,” says Jia Wei, the founder of LKK Innovation Design Group.

That was the motivation that drew then 28-year-old Jia Wei, an industrial designer by training, to leave behind a promising career at tech giant Lenovo to set up his own company in 2004.

It was indeed a leap of faith, for someone so young. He says that back then, despite the growing purchasing power of Chinese consumers, there were few companies that were offering innovative and aesthetically pleasing products.

Moreover, there was also a need to cultivate that purchasing power into regular demand.

“In the past 200 years, China has suffered a lot because we’ve lagged in terms of technology. So we didn’t have too much demand with regard to the pursuit of beauty, which in turn led to a deficiency in aesthetic education,” says Jia Wei.

Yet Jia Wei seemed committed to his vision of beauty and design, and in just 11 years, his Beijing-based B2B organization has grown leaps and bounds to become an international player, with some 750 employees and an annual turnover of over 100 million yuan (15 million US dollars).

According to the China Industry Review, in the late 1970s, China was heavily dependent on overseas experts and products when it came to industrial design. However, with reforms that began towards the end of that decade, things began to change, and the 21st Century has only seen that change pick up rapid pace.

As per an analysis by the China Building Decoration Association (CBDA) in 2015, China had around 17 million designers. In 2015, the WDR (World Design Ranking) placed China at the 5th position among 83 countries.

On the surface, what Jia Wei is offering are goods like domestic appliances, consumer goods, industrial products, musical instruments, etc.

However, if one is to scratch below, there appears a pattern – one of intelligent design that echoes his philosophy of life and beauty inspired by ancient Chinese culture.

“To me, the art of beauty in China is about the beauty of life. So I am trying to explore it in my work as well,” he says.

An example of that is Jia Wei’s re-imagination of the humble incense stick stands that are found in most homes and offices in the country.

Aptly named, Gao Shan Liu Shui (or High Mountain and Flowing Water), it harks back to an ancient Chinese folklore about the enduring friendship between musician Bo Ya and his admirer Zhong Ziqi.

Using his skills as an industrial designer, Jia Wei re-conceptualized the traditional stands as stepping stones with the smoke flowing down them, as though water flowing down a mountain.

“三个鹅卵石，以石代山，以烟寓水，山静水动，自在之美。我在追求这种自在，不拘于现实，不拘于技术，无边界的设计。”

Another incense-based product is Shang Shan Hu (or the Climbing Tiger). As much as it is about aroma, the product is also a statement about the fleeting nature of life and the human quest for legacy, a footprint.

“中国的美学是生命美学。我的作品里也在探索对美的理解。用香灰记录人生的轨迹。香点燃后，一段一段落在香台上是最美的。步步登高，虎啸人生路。香枝燃尽，轨迹犹存。人已经从雪地里离开了，但是雪地里的是脚步遗迹之美，空灵，充满想象。”

“I want to record the path of a man through the ashes of incense. After it is ignited, the bits of ash left behind on the platform are the most beautiful aspects of the product. It’s like, when a person walks away from a snowfield; he is gone, but his footprint remains on the ground,” he tells CCTV-News, explaining the thought process behind the creation.

Going forward, Jia Wei wants to continue creating designs that have “narrative power,” as he describes them. From his perspective, consumers are slowly moving away from the mere functional aspects of goods.

Value in the future, he says, will be derived in terms of how products appeal to all our senses - that connect at an emotional level.

“I want to do designs that contain stories - that present a kind of relation or connections. A good design is the one that allows the five senses to interact with each other and allow them to imagine freely. In the industrial era, we have material objects; it’s very easy for us to buy them. But when we’ve had enough of them, the next era will be imagination economy era,” says Jia Wei.

With his efforts and products, he hopes to tell the tale of his country, its civilizational heritage, spiritual depth and the changing lives of its people, while in the process creating an organization that embodies Chinese innovation and design at the global stage.

“I think a person, a city, a country, a nation, the most precious gift they have are their stories. A man with story is a man with life force. A country with story is a place with life force,” he says.