Someone once asked business wizard Jack Welch: What is the secret of successful business management? He answers: Success belongs to lean and agile organizations, where keeping things simple is the key point of business activities.
In fact, it is an ability and a great wisdom to reduce the complexity and simplify the complex. In a highly competitive design industry, Liu Zhiming, who advocates the aesthetic concept of "seeing prosperity in colorlessness", also knows this truth. As he said: "Whether it is a hobby in daily life or designing a space, you must follow the road to simplicity, calm your heart, and listen carefully to the people and things around you in order to find the wonderful meaning behind it." ”
23 years of development, won many honors at home and abroad, walking on the road to simplicity, today's Jiyi Design as a well-known interior space architectural design firm in contemporary China, the business covers mansions, offices, real estate and other fields, always with a professional system and perfect team, to provide customers with systematic and personalized design services.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the T10+ Design Alliance, DESIGN TRENDS entered Ningbo, where spring is in full swing, and had an in-depth conversation with Liu Zhiming, one of the initiators of the alliance, to explore the profound philosophy behind the word "simple".
Liu Zhiming
Founder and chief designer of Jiyi Space Design
Vice President of Ningbo Interior Designers Association
Co-sponsor of T10+ Design Alliance
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Mr. Liu Zhiming's design projects cover office, exhibition, real estate and other fields, and have won many design awards. In his view, to maintain the vitality and competitiveness of design, designers need to learn to balance the various relationships between the team and individuals, companies and customers, let the team improve the design, improve the service with specifications, give themselves a simple and healthy life, and create a more beautiful design in a beautiful environment.
# 01
The beginning of all things, the road to simplicity
It is a kind of wisdom in life
"Simplicity is natural, calm, happy, and the crystallization of wisdom to see through life." Liu Zhiming, who sat opposite, his eyes were gentle but firm, and he said: "The more complex things are, the simpler they are, and life is about finding balance in a changing environment." ”
This is the scene where we meet Liu Zhiming, in addition to the designer's own artistic temperament and clear life wisdom, which makes his conversation a little more humble and elegant. For him, if you summarize his outlook on things in a few words, "the beginning of all things, the road to simplicity" is enough to describe it.
With such attitudes and concepts, his way of acting is more comfortable, and he is more like a relaxed and playful life home than a busy and anxious entrepreneur. Talking about the relationship between work and life, he said: "8-10 hours a day to work, about 3 hours of spare time to immerse myself in hobbies, and the remaining 10 hours to spend with my favorite people, telling stories to my daughter, playing games, etc." This day is full and happy, isn't it enough to have such a good life? ”
In addition, Liu Zhiming in life also likes and is good at golf, skateboarding, skiing and other cool sports, and he can analyze the skills of each sport in the simplest way. For example, he compares golf to a perfect arc sport, and he sees snowboarding as a thin, silky scratch.
It's not that he is superficial, but he is used to looking at things in the simplest and most understandable way. He said that without excessive force, the real master is often very simple.
Ningbo Dongyuan Audio Headquarters Office Building
# 02
Make the design simple
Live life wonderfully
In general, the founder's genes determine the personality of a company. Extended to the field of design, Liu Zhiming's way of being a person is also directly related to the credo of Jiyi Design - to make design simple.
Specific to methodology, Liu Zhiming classifies design into micro perspective and macro perspective. At the micro level, it is necessary to zoom in on the problem to pay attention to details and achieve the extreme, and after the extreme, it means simplicity. At the macro level, it is necessary to find simple ways to reduce superficial considerations and add more detail, functionality, and craftsmanship in a multi-dimensional overall perspective. "In fact, design is the unity of the two, like building blocks, using different sizes to divide the space into several surfaces, and then connect the different blocks by opening, shifting, cutting holes, looking at each other, etc."
At the same time, in his view, design is more important: space is a blank piece of paper, talent is the protagonist in space. Further, the essence of space is to use people, and to do design is to pursue this simplest logic to the end. Function always above form, not designed for design, but designed for a wonderful life.
Yunqi Jiulong sales hall
This is well demonstrated in the case of his own home, which he personally handled. Here, Liu Zhiming avoids a lot of complicated decorative language, from the relationship between light and space to the subtle settings such as "eye space" connecting public and private areas, all synchronized with the family's life trajectory. It is worth mentioning that he also customized a micro-landscape for this place, and the story behind it comes from his own life understanding: "Imagine yourself walking in the cracks of the mountain, looking up is a line of sky, and going out is an unknown new world." At this moment, people are so small, heaven and earth are awe-inspiring. ”
After simplifying the design, how do you form your own style? On this issue, Liu Zhiming and we said in depth: "Don't think too much about the so-called style. The personal style that the designer wants to form comes from the accumulation and application of daily life, the experience of life behavior, natural space and society is different, what is done is different, to form inspiration or accumulation, in the long run to integrate what he sees and thinks into the work, will form his own style. ”
Gramercy flat
Liu Zhiming from residence
# 03
Craftsmanship
Customer-centric and precise communication
If professional design thinking, underlying logical thinking ability, and meticulous methodology are the necessary core of designers, then in a company, a unique cultural atmosphere and value consensus are the soil for nurturing good works.
In the meaning of the design of Jiyi, "art" refers to skills, techniques, and creativity, implying a kind of ingenuity, while "Ji" represents gathering a group of like-minded people. In general, it is this corporate culture of "simple, pragmatic, rigorous and growing" that injects a solid background into the design of art and becomes its nutrient deep in the marrow.
The seemingly unpretentious rhetoric is actually full of a return to the basics. Liu Zhiming believes that there is no need to deliberately express, or too many pompous skills, to achieve customer-centric problem solving, the meaning and path of design will naturally appear.
Ningbo Dibao Yunza large flat layer
Implemented in specific service scenarios, "accurate communication" has always been emphasized by Jyi Design. Taking residential design as an example, "most owners' ideas about home are vague and even irrational, and many owners only have more rooms and high-end furniture after upgrading to large apartments, and there is no change in the arrangement of circulation, comfort, and functional room settings." Therefore, as a designer, you need to read the real needs of the owner, and communicate with customers in the appropriate language to create works that meet customer needs and have a certain artistic aesthetic height. ”
At the same time, Jiyi Design also attaches importance to the growth and accumulation of the team, emphasizing the balance of team building, the distribution of work content, and so on. How to balance the strength of various teams, so that everyone can work together in harmony and maintain a healthy and consistent growth rhythm is a topic that he continues to explore. And this is also the cultural value of the so-called "craftsmanship".
Ningbo Jiulong Bay Villa
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Looking at the current fierce involution design industry, Jiyi design is a unique and rare existence. Different from the rapid progress of many enterprises, behind the success of Jiyi design, there is a simple and calm determination.
In the view of founder Liu Zhiming, good design not only requires professional quality, but also the accumulation of life, which not only depends on the designer's professionalism, but also includes gradual precipitation and experience with age. Even under the emergence of new design trends in the future, Jiyi Design will still embrace the diversified and cutting-edge design trend from an open perspective, but its "simple" design wisdom will always remain unchanged.
And this is what makes him distinctly unique – a rational and innovative design mindset that is always simple and slow in complexity. Devoted to 23 years of precipitation and development, we look forward to the leadership of Liu Zhiming, Jiyi Design will continue to take root and grow steadily in the future.
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