You are the founder of DMY International Design Festival in Berlin. How did that all start?

It’s funny, actually in 2003 I had this idea of promoting myself as a designer, not building a global designer platform. The plan was to find clients and working opportunities in Berlin by throwing open studio parties to my friends, other designers and creative industry influencers. In 10 years it grew into something else. And I’m happy it did. Last year I made the decision to leave DMY as I felt the child was big enough. I was the father who was always concerned about my baby and brand needs changes. DMY is all about young designers and young audience, which I felt wasn’t me anymore. I always want to build something new and by leaving DMY behind I felt open for new possibilities again.

What are you working on with FOUNDRY Berlin at the moment?

These past weeks, I have been working with a new bike brand from China starting their business in Europe. Asian like European brands, many Chinese companies make their first steps in Europe and then go back in Asia to triumph. After establishing their brand in Europe they can make more sales in Asia.

What kind of projects have you realized in Asia?

We have done a lot of projects in Asia since 2006; 5 to 10 exhibitions every year from Tokyo to Singapore mostly promoting German designers. The reception has always been quite good; the people in Asia are open for design and inspiration, but it’s very difficult to sell the products. The understanding for design costing money is not yet in the same level as it is in Europe. But Asia is changing; nowadays people have more money and they are starting to invest in fashion, art and design.

What would be your 3 tips for creative company establishing business in Asia?

1. Start first in some other market than in Asia, like in Europe or US. If your product is already in the market, the Asian factors are not so fast to copy it. Get the pictures and descriptions out making your product unavailable for stealing.

2. Find local partners!

3. Find legal support. Asian business mentality is really hard to understand without legal guidance. A good Asian company won’t ever pay 100 % of the price asked. If you know this, it’s not a problem. I always charge 120 % price from Asian buyers. That way, when in the negotiation price will get to 80 % I won’t lose money. I also make the business partner feel good and respected.

In your view, how do European and Asian design interact?

German design is very basic and functional. Asian design is more playful and focused on details. Also the mentality is very different: in Europe we live in a culture where we learn to ask and criticize finding new ways of design and innovation that way. In Asia it’s not like that. The way to create is by copying honouring the master by doing that. European industry doesn’t approve this copy culture. It’s totally another way of designing, which is important to know and understand. We need to think that they like and respect design so much that they want to make it even better.

What’s the most interesting Asian country for creative industries at the moment?

China! Chinese market is so huge and they need so many things, it’s a paradise for designers. China has money and factors which makes it a strong place for creative industries. The Chinese government just launched a major project for the next 5 years including a lot of investments in the creative industries. They are in the position where they can buy all the knowledge they want for creative innovations.

How you see the development of Europe-Asia collaborations in the creative field?

Asians buy knowledge more and more from Europeans using it in educating their own people. It is very hard for Western people to blend into Asian culture, there is always going to be a certain distance. This is a problem if we don’t know how to cooperate with Asia the right way. One third of world’s population lives in Asia so it is important to think what we want out of these collaborations. How can we continue staying in our position and where we want to go. If it’s the right direction, Asia will follow.

What inspires you at the moment?

I think there’s a lot of potential in social design developing new models, strategies and products that can play a decisive role in the development and transformation of society. We have more and more people in the world so it’s essential to save resources and not necessarily buy everything new. That is what Asia needs also.

What would you like everyone to know about Asia?

You have to know that people are very respectful in a formal way. They have amazing food. They can not say no: they say yes, but you have to know what it means. If someone says to you “yes yes it’s coming” don’t wait for it, go for it.

EARS – Europe-Asia Roundtable Sessions is a platform focusing on creative industry collaboration between Europe and Asia. The next EARS event will be held in Helsinki, August 27-30, showcasing the latest trends from Asia in the fields of design, music, performing arts, literature, marketing and media.

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Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Esther Muñoz Grootveld and I’m Dutch but based in Shanghai since a little bit more than three years now. I work in Shanghai as a consultant specialized in design and fashion.

You are the Project and Brand Consulting Manager at design agency COORDINATION ASIA. What kinds of thing you are working with?

At COORDINATION ASIA I’m mostly consulting on space design and branding for museums, retail clients and brands. They either already are in the Chinese market or want to set up a cultural or retail space and need advice on branding, design and communication.

Coordination Asia is basically my day job and besides that I’m a freelance consultant. My freelance work is more focused on fashion because that’s where my background is. I consult designers coming from European countries to the Asian market or other way around.

What do you think are the main qualities of success in the fashion industry?

For now, it’s very important to have a very strong story. I think that before people differentiated themselves either through design or the concept. Of course you have to have high quality materials and design, you have to have a good business plan but also your story needs to be on spot. So when you look at how you set yourself out in the market, you really have to think why is your brand story original and how is it related to your product. And all together, it needs to be authentic. People need to believe your story because there’s so much to choose from, especially in fashion, and especially in Asia.

What makes a great fashion brand for you?

For me a good fashion brand brings timeless products that do not necessarily follow flows of fashion. I like brands and products that you buy and keep for a long time, products that tells a story and are produced in responsibly way.

How would you compare European and Chinese fashion consumers?

I think that European consumers have kind of evolved beyond the story and are really focusing on sustainability, ecological and responsible producing – honest, maybe even like handmade style products. In China, people are still really focusing on the story. In Europe, we have turned our mind-set to a little bit towards honest products but in China it’s more about honest stories. When looking at the fashion products authenticity, honesty and uniqueness are what we have in common. But maybe in Europe, the way the product is produced, that you know it’s real and good is a little bit more important than in China.

You have talked about the new luxury in China. What do you mean by that?

I’ve only been in China for three to four years but in this short time I’ve seen how quickly the market changes. Something like 10 years ago, fashion consumers in China looked towards the west for inspiration. Most people didn’t have means to buy big labels so they were buying cheaper, maybe not that well-designed and well-produced products. Now when the wealth and taste of fashion in China are increasing, people started to think that wearing brands like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton means expressing that you’re moving up. But slowly I think it’s changing and Chinese fashion consumers are moving towards understanding that they can actually use fashion to express their own unique identity, not just to label themselves as well-offs.

This is where the new luxury comes in. People are looking for products that really express their unique culture identity and that they have evolved taste. They have money to spend but they are picky about where they spend it on. They are looking for unique products that nobody has in the market where you can get everything, copied or non-copied. In China, it’s really challenging to find something unique that nobody else has. The fashion pioneers in China are looking for those products: unique, maybe even China designed, one-off products that they can show to their friends and say “I’m unique cause I’m wearing this”. This is what I called “the new luxury”.

What’s your vision on upcoming trends in the fashion business?

I just met a Finnish designer called Satu Maaranen and I was very impressed by her. One of reasons was that she has a very interesting vision on her role as a designer. She doesn’t necessarily want to start her own brand. She just sees herself as somebody with a vision of fashion and who is interested in textiles and patters. She’s a craftswoman but also a businesswoman. This is interesting because when I was working in the Netherlands and speaking with young fashion designers, I remember that everybody wanted to be a new Versace. They came out from school and wanted to have a store with their name above it. Meaning of being a fashion designer was having your name on a label.

My vision is that as a designer your role is to make creative solutions using your skills. Satu is a very nice example of a new fashion designer who uses her skills as a fashion professional but also looks into interior and art. She’s kind of a hybrid and I think this is where the fashion business is going in the future. Sometimes the design disciplines, especially in fashion, kind of close themselves in their own world. My personal hope is that the fashion circles will open up and start collaborating more with architects, designers, technologists and whatever may come along.

What inspires you most at the moment?

Travelling and talking to different people inspires me most in general. I try to move around all the time and living in a city like Shanghai has a big advance because people come in all the time. What really shapes my vision and inspires me on design and also in life in general is talking to people living in different cities. That just brings new ideas. I would advice everybody to travel and definitely come to China!

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Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Rossana Hu and I am an architect by training and I now work as an architect and a designer in Shanghai.

You have a recent project where you re-branded an old police office. What were the biggest difficulties in the project?

Number one was to convince the client, who actually hired us to do a new building. They wanted to demolish the old building but we saw value in preserving parts of it. So that was the biggest challenge as he is putting in all the money and was expecting a brand new building.

What kinds of spaces inspire you the most?

Generally speaking? It’s hard to pin point exactly but I would say that places that bring out memories inspire me. It’s about the mood and experience or a memory of an experience. I think spaces are not neutral, they always include feelings. The feelings are deep, whether they are good or bad, happy or sad. If they are deep, I like it.

Recently you won the Wallpaper* Designer of the Year 2014 Award. What are your next goals or projects you are working on?

We have a lot of projects that we work on and never see awards as goals. Those things just kind of come. Designers are a lot like performers. They say that a musician is as good as their last performance. If you are a pianist and you fail at a concert, no one will ever want to see you again. I think that’s same with us designers. If you do one bad project, people will forget about all the previous good projects and only remember the very last one. So what I think we try to do is that the next project has to always be better than the previous one.  So always thinking of fresh ideas, always challenging yourself, never taking convictions or traditions as the only way, finding new possibilities and doing things differently.

Here in EARS you talked a lot about re-branding and reusing spaces. What is the value of reusing old buildings?

I think people talk a lot about sustainability. Often that kind of talk has to do with technology, finding new technology, new materials in order to recycle and reuse. But I think one of the easiest ways to sustainability are; number one, make thinks that last. If for example a building is built to be long lasting, you don’t need to rebuild. The second thing is to reuse. It’s very sensible and common sense way of making your environment sustainable. For example if a shopping center ceases to exist as a viable commercial center, then you can see a theater taking over or a church or a school as the building is already there and the structures are already there.  I see that reusing something is a good example of sustainability.

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Hey, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Pan Jianfeng and I’m from China. I’m a graphic designer but some people call me an artist.

What kind of projects are you working with at the moment?

We are working with the visual identity for Norway. They want to build a new identity in China. Their previous logo was very serious and formal, and they feel that Chinese people may not be very interested in that. We are now designing a better, friendlier image for them and building a concept where Norway is the gate to the Nordic countries. Another recent project we have been working with is a brochure design for a couple of French companies. These companies have rent a 90 year old building and are turning it to their office. They asked me to design a leaflet, which actually looks kind of like a newspaper, to tell about their business concepts and the history of the building. The whole paper, all the elements in it, will be hand-painted with brush.

What has been the most meaningful project to you so far?

Well this newspaper project is kind of commercial but we are using the brushes to develop a new style, so I like that very much. When talking about independent projects, I would say that all my art projects have been meaningful as they are all about my own observation of the world and my daily life. My art is quite deep in Chinese society, the history and also some contemporary problems that we face.

You have a recent project called True Life, could you tell us what it’s about?

The True Life Project was a part of the Design Shanghai 2013 exhibition. It was a collaboration project by me, a Finnish architect Teemu Kurkela and my other friend Martta Louekari. The three of us had a nice Finnish summer holiday in Helsinki. Previously I had been asked to make something for the Design Shanghai exhibition and we started to think together what could we do for the exhibition. We were living on an island in a beautiful place called Villa Oivala. We were watching this beautiful landscape and wondering what our true life was. This way we came up with this concept, True Life. We see that as designers, we can help Chinese for example to look at their own life from a different angle. China has high speed development but many problems at the same time. That made us ask a question: what is true life, in China or somewhere else? It’s a question mark basically.

What was the output of True Life for Design Shanghai?

Together with Teemu, we built a pavilion, a house a bit like a summer cottage. People could lie down there. Then we invited our friends to bring their salute or idea of true life to the pavilion. We had ten different boxes and each of them had 0ne to display their vision of true life. Boxes were innovatively visioned and one box, for example, represented clean air. We received good media exposure and feedback from Chinese audience and this has led to longer projects. I’m going to Helsinki in July 2014 to do a True Life residency. You could say art basically is my tool in life, I use it to find some answers.

How do you see true life is different in China compared to Finland for example?

We come  from different cultural backgrounds, so it’s very different. Even in China, in different cities for example in Shanghai or in Guangzhou, people have quite different lives. We have our current life and everybody is always looking to make their lives a bit better. We call this true life and it’s very different for different people.

What is true life to you?

I deal with typography so for me a good typography or good calligraphy is very important. Also porcelain ceramic which carries more meaning, could be a true inspiration or true understanding about life to me.

What does typography mean to you?

First of all, for me typography is very much associated with Chinese calligraphy. If you are a good graphic designer you must have good skills in typography, and in my point of view, if you are a good typographer you must know what’s good calligraphy. It might sound a bit complicated but you must remember that Chinese language started from calligraphy. Before computers, say 100 years ago, all Chinese people had to use a brush to write characters, and to use the brush you must know calligraphy first.

Later, people had pens and pencils and they slowly started to forget calligraphy. But in order to see the beauty in the Chinese characters you have to know what is good calligraphy. So I cannot talk about typography separately, I have to talk about calligraphy – I have to associate my calligraphy design with my typography design. In order to know calligraphy you don’t need to be a master but you have to know the history and techniques, the basic structure of characters. Each character has it own meaning in the Chinese language, they are not like A B C D… Each character is a picture itself. So for me, typography is a basic skill when being a graphic designer but it’s not simply just that. Typography is a modern version or form of calligraphy.

Do Chinese people appreciate traditional calligraphy?

Chinesese people still appreciate old traditional calligraphy very much. A lot of people are complaining about the computer fonts as they are quite limited. They are very functional and easy but they don’t have the beauty and the sensitivity of the brush. So when you compare classic pieces, old calligraphy for example, you can see that they have been created by different tools.

You’ve done a lot of cooperation with the Finns. How did this happen?

It’s by accident, just like my artwork. I never have any plans, I always go with the wind. I think I’m a quite easy-going person. I follow my own feelings. When I meet new people and feel that they are good people, I start to keep in touch with them. Then we might create something together.

With the Finns it started by accident in 2009 when Finland had the Snowball conference in Shanghai. The organizer asked me to give a lecture. After the lecture, I took part in this program by Invitation to Helsinki and spent one month in Suomenlinna. It was pretty cold, minus 27 degrees, but I liked it. Compared to Shanghai, it was extremely peaceful and quiet and I was very much enjoying that. I know a lot of Chinese people who would have felt that it was too quiet, they always need many things around. I feel tired in Shanghai. I have had too many projects here during the last ten to twelve years. I feel good physically and mentally in Finland. I met a lot of people especially during the Shanghai Expo and I have worked with many friends from Finland. We have done great projects and received many awards. Everything is telling me that it’s a good direction. I have also learned a lot from all my Finnish friends.

What are you looking forward in EARS on Helsinki?

EARS being a part of Helsinki Design Week is interesting to me as I have never participated in any design weeks. I’m very curious. I’m going to talk about my new book “What Can We Do” at EARS on Helsinki. The book is not only about my design, projects or design thinking. It’s more about rising questions and daily problems in China. I see that as we are living on the same earth, the problems are the same in other places as well, so in Helsinki I would like to talk about these topics with the audience and others participating.

I have also written many articles about my experiences in Finland and about my interpretations of sauna for example. For me sauna is similar to Chinese meditation. It’s nice to share my knowledge with my friends in Finland. Also meeting new people and discovering new projects is always great.

What inspires you right now?

People.

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