Five years ago, China’s massive industrial manufacturing helped Made in China become renowned in the world, and Shenzhen is the most representative city and is called Factory of World for a long time. Five years later, Shenzhen has been turned into the City of Design from city of shanzhai with labels of cheap, and low-end, and it is sixth City of Design, first in China. Creative design has been icon of Shenzhen, where industrial design is the most significant part.
Complete industrial manufacturing chain, with international vision
Last year, Scotty Allen, Google former engineer, made a perfect iPhone 6S with only 2,000 Yuan in several months in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen. He described Shenzhen as a crazy future world. Neil Gershenfeld, director of Center for Bit and Atom, MIT, also thought highly of Huaqiangbei on Fab 12, Huaqiangbei is a miniature of Shenzhen industrial design, and enterprises and designers are surprised at Shenzhen Speed. As long as ideas occur, they can be turned into products in only one week here, but it will take one to two months to make this happen abroad.
Shenzhen has presented itself to the world of Shenzhen Brand in industrial design at a unbelievable speed in only five years. Five years ago, urged by Shenzhen Industrial Design Profession Association, local government issued Measures to accelerate Shenzhen industrial design, and allocated 100 million special funds to support industrial design. Designers who win German IF Design Award or Red-dot Award will receive bonuses from government. This year China won 384 IF Design Awards, with Shenzhen 142 awards. Due to this trend, Red-dot, IF, G-Mark, A’Design Award, Green Product Design Award decide to set up exhibition areas on 2017 Shenzhen International Industrial Design Fair to have close interaction with exhibitors, to expand their influence in China for one side, and to vitalize Shenzhen industrial design innovation.
At the same time, Shenzhen is establishing the platform for global industrial design exchanges. With government’s support, private design forces, and the requirements for industrial design during manufacturing transformation in Shenzhen, under the promotion of industrial design organizations and local government, many world’s renowned designers and design institutions come here for massive markets. One typical example is Sino-Finnish Design Park, where American industrial design master Karim Rashid, Italian genus designer Stefano Giovannoni, and Finland design master Yrjo Kukkapuro have settled. And German IF Design Award also sets up overseas exhibition hall in the Park.
Make industrial design the label of Shenzhen
Richard Hutten, one of the most successful Dutch designers and founder of Dutch Design Movement, made the following comments on Shenzhen industrial design, “after attending Shenzhen International Industrial Design Fair, I see the Fair is improving and unprecedented highlights on industrial design in Shenzhen, and I hope Shenzhen design becomes the label of Shenzhen.” Shenzhen is diverse and open with rich design resources to attract dream-chasers under right guidance from government. And design exchange platforms are established for international cooperation. All these factors will contribute to brand of Shenzhen, City of Design.