Meeting with the PolyU CMT

All staff of PolyU Design welcomed the CMT in their visit to the School last Friday. The meeting was organized in both physical and virtual manners to communicate between the management and staff of the school. It covered different topics for discussions were covered including the review of achievements and challenges, feedback on the Planning Exercise Proposal and university policies, and more. Look forward to our next meeting in the future!

Winners of 2020/21 School Excellence Awards and Long Service Awards announced

We are delighted to announce the winners of 2020/21 School Excellence Awards and Long Service Awards. The awards were presented at the Dean's Talk held today.      2020/21 School Excellence Awards Teaching Excellence Dr Tulio Maximo Dr Jae Oh  Research Excellence  Dr Jörn Bühring Dr Sylvia Xihui Liu   Best Supporting Staff Mr Rio Chan   2020/21 Long Service Awards Ms Grace Chan Mr Rio Chan Ms Chan Wan Yu Miamy Dr Clifford S.T. Choy Mr Ho Tat Hing Alex Dr Newman Lau Prof. Gutierrez Laurent Mr Lo Sung Yin William Dr Henry Ma Mr Horace Pan Ms Tsang Kit Ping Doris Miss Wan Kit Ming Miss Ellen Yeung On-man Congratulations to all awardees and our heartfelt gratitude for their dedicated work!

PolyU Design Awarded Maximum 4-Stars Rating by International Panel of Experts for its Research Impact and Environment

The University Grants Committee Research Assessment Exercise 2020 has announced that "Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design" is the only academic sector with a university receiving the highest 4-stars rating in both “Impact" and "Environment" for all their case studies within that sector – achieved by PolyU. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) School of Design (SD) announced today (26 May, 2021) its results from the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 by the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong. The results reflect the assessment of the work from 35 eligible design researchers from SD together with PolyU’s Institute of Textiles and Clothing – the highest number across the seven universities funded by UGC under the RAE’s “Unit of Assessment (UoA) 38: Visual Arts, Design, Creative Media, Other Creative Arts and Creative Writing”.   In the Overall Quality Profile, 42% of the submitted research outputs were judged by international experts to be “World Leading”, reaching the maximum 4-Stars rating.  In addition, in the Impact Sub-profile, 100% of the case studies have attained the maximum 4-Stars rating, showing “Outstanding impacts in terms of their reach and significance”.  In the Environment Sub-profile, 100% of the case studies reached the maximum 4-Stars level in showing “An environment that is conducive to producing research of world-leading quality, in terms of its vitality and sustainability”.   PolyU is the only university among all Panels in the RAE 2020 that has achieved a maximum 4-Stars rating in both “Impact” and “Environment” for all its case studies within the panel.  Prof. Kun-pyo Lee, Dean of School of Design, Swire Chair Professor of Design, and Alex Wong Siu Wah Gigi Wong Fook Chi Professor in Product Design Engineering, said, "The result is a collective success for all School of Design researchers involved in the hard work of collecting and collating raw and unorganized data since the last evaluation in 2014. I am extremely pleased to see that the judges recognized the quality of our research, and in particular, the impact created by non-textual outputs.”  Prof. Lee added, “The society should take careful note of the world-class quality of design research in Hong Kong that is on par with more popular disciplines such as “accountancy” and “economics and finance”.  The support, freedom and space provided by the School have lend itself to attract excellent researchers from around the world, and would pave the way for more quality international collaborative research in the future.”   The RAE 2020 was implemented under the purview of the Research Assessment Exercise Group (RAEG) of the UGC.  Assessment Panel 12 for “Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design” involved 14 distinguished scholars and research end-user with extensive professional knowledge and expertise in their respective fields.  Among them, 11 (or 79%) were non-local scholars from different parts of the world.   The results of this panel are published on the UGC website (https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/activity/research/rae/2020/results.html). 

Watch Design Social: Advanced Colloquia Series | Manifest Initiative

The Advanced Colloquia Series: Manifest Initiative was held on 10–12 May 2021. It featured speakers connecting socio-political and economic factors of urbanity and space to technologically and materially driven design and architecture. If you have missed the live sessions, please watch the archive HERE.

Communication Design capstone project as international awards winner

Congratulations to Miss Michelle Poon (Communication Design, graduated in 2020) on winning two international awards with her final year project ‘MUSE - Experience. Music. Perception’!  Golden Winner, Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Category, A’ Design Award Competition 2020 Silver Prize, Asia Design Platform Awards 2021  MUSE is an experimental design project studying the musical perception of the human through three installation experiences, two sensational and one logical. People are encouraged to interact with the installations and explore the music visually with their own perception. We try to understand how people understand music here. The project supervisor is Anneke Coppoolse.   

Communication Design capstone project as international awards winner

We are thrilled to know that ‘Kill Danny’, an animation work by our last year’s graduates of BA(Hons) in Digital Media, has just been shortlisted for the 2021 GSA BAFTA Student Awards. It was selected from the 680 submissions made by students at film schools in 34 countries.  ‘Kill Danny’ was one of our last year’s Tutors’ Choice projects and won Special Mention, Animation Category at The 26th ifva Awards. It is made by Leung Chun Tat, Wu Hau Chung, and Law Lok Hei. Their supervisor is Step Cheung.  The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a world-leading independent arts charity that brings the very best work in film, games and television to public attention and supports the growth of creative talent in the UK and internationally. The Award is considered as one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. Read more>> 

Young Design Talents to share their overseas experience

#PolyUDesign_Heritage Two previous winners of DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award, Charles Ng and Tomson Chan shared their stories being communication designers who experienced professional and person growth at their overseas work. Among them Mr Charles Ng (Communication Design, 2018) is a graduate of PolyU Design. As supported by the Award, he managed to pursue his dream of working in a well-established design house in London where he was involved in wayfinding projects for clients in different countries. Click HERE for the full interview on Stand News. The DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award is now inviting applications from young designers aged 18-35 until 28 June 2021. Winners will receive a sponsorship up to HK$500,000 to support their overseas studies or work. Details: ydta.dfaawards.com

Deadline Extended Call for Papers: #IASDR_2021

#IASDR_2021 UPDATE Submission deadline for Papers, Pictorials, and Designed Objects is 10 June 2021 (extended); Submission deadline for Graduate Consortium Papers/Abstracts, Workshops, and Panel Proposals is 25 July 2021.   In December 2021, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design will host the ninth Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research or IASDR 2021.  Under the theme of [ _ ] WITH DESIGN: REINVENTING DESIGN MODES, design finds itself at a critical moment where the conventional ‘modes’ of doing, thinking and application are increasingly challenged by the troubled ideology of globalization, climate changes, migration patterns and rapid restructuring of locally driven manufacturing sectors. In addition, the wider call for design to become more open and more cross- and trans-disciplinary has further blurred boundaries between disciplinary and knowledge domains, challenging both design discourses and designers to steer praxis and thinking across unchartered territory for the sake of innovation and advancing research.  In combination with the environmental, cultural, technological, and, crucially, pandemic transitions, the call heeds for design at large to fundamentally alter its modes of practice. Beyond the conventional models of conducting research, or developing solutions to ‘wicked’ problems, the recoupling of design with different modes should be seen as an expression to embrace other capacities of thinking, criticisms and productions. The coupling of SOCIAL, MAKING, BUSINESS, CRITICAL, HISTORICAL/PROJECTIVE, IMPACT, PANDEMIC and ALTERNATIVE MODES with DESIGN necessitates the rescripting of all aptitudes and practices.  [ _ ] WITH DESIGN: REINVENTING DESIGN MODES encourages design researchers to discuss, elaborate and investigate emerging modes of design research that transcend disciplines in order to serve a multitude of goals and scales. This overarching theme wishes to solicit the definition of new frameworks, models, methods, products and unexpected outcomes in this questioning of design futures. #IASDR_2021 accepts full and short papers. For the first time the Congress will include pictorials, designed objects, and panels; it will continue to include workshops and graduate consortium (PhD and Masters) contributions.  More information can be found at www.iasdr2021.org.

Student works shortlisted in RTHK Filming Hong Kong Competition 2021 Season 1

Two amazing short films produced by our Year 3 students from Advertising Design and Social Design were shortlisted in the RTHK Filming Hong Kong Competition 2021 Season 1 (《凝視香港》短片創作比賽2021) organized by the RTHK. Tutors: KC Tsang and Tony Wong.  虛實 TIN Hiu Yan, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design CHOW Wing Ki, Connie, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design TAM Ka Yau, Kary, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design Watch>> 夜裡行 CHEUNG Chi Ho, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design CHAN Kit Fu, Jeff, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design LAM Hiu Kwan, Una, BA(Hons) in Advertising Design FENG Xueyi, Agnes, BA(Hons) in Social Design YANG Ka Lam, Amy, BA(Hons) in Social Design CHAN Kei Him, Kevin, BA(Hons) in Social Design Watch>>  This is an open competition where these shortlisted works will enter into the next stage for the championship. Best works will be broadcasted via RTHK 31 TV Channel. Please stay tuned for the competition announcement.

Social experiment: search for smiles behind masks through a claw crane game

A group of our Social Design students took their limited-edition claw crane to reconnect people around Hong Kong through bartering second hand goods in a way of game, and to bring happiness to Hongkongers who have been bored and unmotivated for a long time during the pandemic. Click HERE to read their sharing “Social experiment: looking for smiles behind the face masks through our claw crane" published on 星期日生活 Sunday Mingpao. Students: CHEUNG Hui Ki Yvonne, LAW Cheuk Lam, WONG Yuen Ting (Year 2, BA(Hons) in Social Design) Tutors: Siu King Chung, Chan Kam Fai, Jonathan Yu