The "Shimmer" workshop | Gao Shaokang: Design is not only to produce beauty, but also to communicate with people through beauty_Shenzhen News Network

The "Shimmer" workshop is a public welfare speech activity jointly sponsored by the Shenzhen Municipal Talent Work Bureau and the Shenzhen Talent Training Institute, with the basic concept of "sharing, connecting and co-creating", focusing on Shenzhen young talents, telling their struggle stories, passing on the spirit of endeavor, so that the beams of shimmer of individual talents gradually converge to form a spark that lights up the city. The full text of the speech Cooperation (the full text is about 2700 words, it takes 5 minutes to read) 01 "Greater Bay Area Brother" in Shenzhen is not satisfied with the water and soil I am doing design, due to the background of Hong Kong, I have worked here for a long time. When people ask me now, they don't care about my design, but about my life: What is the difference between living in Shenzhen and living in Hong Kong? How to integrate? So my topic today is about cooperation. In 2008, I moved my career center from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, and my Mandarin was only learned after coming to Shenzhen, which is not very standard now, but it is still relatively fluent. When I first came to Shenzhen, it was still difficult for me to be a Hong Kong boy, often I couldn't understand it, and I didn't know what it meant, my son came to the mainland to study last year, and he also had this experience, and often appeared in a state of "a confused face". Let me give you two short stories. What I am most afraid of when customers say is "design to be atmospheric", Hong Kong does not have this word, how much "gas" is called "atmosphere"? Big gas？ Hong Kong people are quite "small", grew up in such an oppressive environment, will not think about the "atmosphere" of things, and then I went to Beijing, saw a wide street, saw the Forbidden City, felt that this is called the atmosphere. Although we are all talking about Chinese, the Chinese placed in different social environments is also different, which is called the context, which will shape the difference in cultural understanding and cultural expression. Another sentence that gives me a headache is that I asked Party A, what is the opinion on this design, he said "the design is not bright enough", how bright is it to be bright? This is very vain, Chinese speech is quite subtle, all the expressions are very euphemistic. So I thought of expressing a bright eye through a symbol, and a few years ago I made such a symbol on the corridor of our company, "a bright eye", a corridor with poor vision. When you use your mobile phone to find the point of the projection, you can see a very complete symbol, and you can take this "eye-catching" pattern. Design is storytelling, and design must find an accurate focus in order to make people shine. This has slowly become my personal symbol, I think life is the whole of creativity, how to find this focus, how to grasp the difference in cultural language, find the opportunity for cooperation, you must empathize to do co-creation. Speakers from different cultures, different backgrounds, and different countries come to a place, and it is very important to find a point of empathy with this place in order to shine in this place. 02 Design is a window to see the innovative spirit of Shenzhen's development A few years ago, the media reporter asked me how to use a word to describe Shenzhen, and what came to my mind was a picture, that is, "explosion". This picture is very familiar to many Shenzhen people, and this is the first shot of reform and opening up in Shekou. From here, Shenzhen developed rapidly. The reason why Shenzhen has become today's Shenzhen is from the beginning of reform and opening up. The basis of Shenzhen's glowing light is the driving force of "making money", which is a positive driving force that more or less sets the tone for the city. It's dynamic and constantly evolving. In 2011, shortly after coming to Shenzhen, I made such a design, which is the "deep" word of Shenzhen, the point of divergence of the center, at that time there was no Greater Bay Area, I wanted to express the future of Shenzhen through such a picture is the power of the divergence of the pearl river delta center, the English is "SHENERGY". At that time, this idea was still a bit ahead of its time, and its expression was still a bit lacking. A few years later, I also encountered an opportunity, which was the Shenzhen Global Design Competition, which was the Shenzhen Design Week held by the municipal government, and I was one of them to coordinate this design week. This competition is to collect solutions from the world, and then express creativity, which represents the strength of Shenzhen's development, the strength of youth, and the spirit of innovation. I did logo design myself, so I integrated them and made the logo of the Global Design Competition. It also represents the idea of looking at the world and letting the world see at the same time. Another story is that one day, the police uncle came to the door, and I was very nervous. They are the leaders of the Immigration Department, and they think we have some ideas that are very good, and they want to do some shenzhen-Hong Kong design projects, and they want us to do a design for a certificate processing hall. We didn't know how to do it at the beginning, so we said, "Asir, let's make a friend, come up with a plan, and if you accept it, we'll continue to do it, and if you don't accept it, we'll make a friend." "We wanted to do some design of our own ideas, it went smoothly, we went through the draft, I was quite surprised." This time the design serves as a public window and also represents the spirit of Shenzhen, and the progress of the city is based on its respect for the people. This time the design is a self-service hall with some self-service ATMs inside and a service cabin outside to help register. Later, this design was valued by them, and many leaders introduced us to this program, which was an important beginning of cooperation for us. This was a small episode that gave me the confidence to cooperate with the government departments, and also gave us a lot of opportunities, and then there was a lot of cooperation with the public security organs, such as the certificate service hall in Xiangmi Lake, and some cooperation with the public security organs to expand to other places. Cooperation is to generate value, first of all, commercial value, and then further is to turn it into an idea that can lead the industry, and to enhance the value of the industry through cooperation. Over the years, we have done a lot of projects, such as Shenzhen business, the image of Shenzhen Airport, private brand tea, bookstores, etc. Over the years, we have learned about the city little by little, understood its cultural background, and made a lot of designs about the city through communion and co-creation. 03 Design produces social value and "children of the stars" to compose a picture over the years, I feel my mission as a designer, not only through design to enhance social value, but also to achieve social value. Since last year, I have held "Love Letters from Star Children" with Teacher Di Ping, the founder of the "Little Box" art education institution, an art co-creation exhibition for children with autism. The two star child artists in this collaboration, Yu Chen and Yao Ran, are both in their teens and twenties, and Teacher Di Fei taught them to draw ten years ago, so they can get artistic nourishment in the box of autism. In fact, the employment rate of autistic children is only 1% when they grow up, and most autistic people can only stay at home, and their families must always accompany them. They are not the same as people with disabilities and have difficulty finding jobs because they have social disabilities. We hope to be able to help them through social programs. Many times, we also feel that star children are very artistic, but in fact, they still need to be promoted and guided. So through a sustainable social enterprise program, let art design drive, co-creation and mutual growth, to help artistically talented children to obtain employment opportunities. We held the first "Painting with The Children of the Stars" art exhibition, not only our two artists, but also called two normal young artists to paint together, make friends with art, learn with cooperation, and promote with such a concept. We spent more than a month painting together and got media attention and interviews. We held such an exhibition at the G Value Factory in Shekou, Shenzhen, where each painting was not completed by one person, but by me guiding the children of the stars to complete it together. Through such art exhibitions, we can not only contact them, but also enhance their artistic expression, which is a co-creation concept, an expression of different artistic creation. Although our power is relatively small, over time, we can attract more social attention. This path is not lonely, because there are many institutions and brands that have taken the initiative to cooperate with us. At the recently completed Shenzhen Fashion Week, we worked with the Women's Federation and clothing brands to create together with the "Children of the Stars". We completed the co-created paintings with eco-recycled computer covers, which are exhibited in global environmental programs. These little bits of sparkle give us great encouragement, doing design is not only to produce beauty, we need to communicate with people through beauty. Finally, I would like to quote the German poet Schiller: "Only the exchange of beauty can unite society, because it concerns all that mankind shares." Note: The image comes from the speaker