Hong Kong PolyU Design Annual Show

Every year, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)’s School of Design holds an Annual show featuring students’ works. This year, it was held at the InnoCentre in Kowloon Tong from May 29th to June 13th. I was fortunate enough to attend and had the opportunity to view first hand the creative and forward thinking projects that these students came up with.

The Annual Show features the final year projects of the students from the School’s Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Design, Higher Diploma in Multimedia Design and Technology, and Higher Diploma in Product Innovation Technologies. These students focus on a spectrum of specialties such as advertising, digital media, environment and interior, industrial and product, or visual communication design.

This year, the school recognized that design is no longer a “one-way street” and that the underlying theme for the show would be “Response”. This was chosen to emphasize communication and interaction in the making of good design. I have compiled a short list of a couple of my favourites from the show.

Satisfact10n by Amy Ling

Satisfact10n provides not only tips to make traditional Chinese cooking easy, but also the knowledge in its ingredients’ nutritional values. It is a platform where customers can exchange cooking tips and health knowledge. It aims at continuing the affinities carried in a traditional Chinese grocery store where the personal relationship between the shop owner and the customer is treasured.

Loner Lamp by Lai Cheuk Kee

The Loner Lamp is an interesting concept exploring themes of loneliness and companionship from the creative mind of Cheuk Kee. Where your typical lamp turns on when you switch it on, the Loner Lamp only lights up when you hold onto the handle. Once you put it down, it ceases to light up until someone else picks it up again.

CAP by Amos Woo and Sharon Ng

“CAP” is a pinhole camera which uses recycled paper to make its body and the skeleton. This project aims to remind people about the need to pay attention to the Earth’s resources. “We want people to be impressed with the possibility of paper molding by making a pinhole camera. We designed (the camera) to use the most simple mechanism in taking pictures,” say Amos and Sharon.

Adding to their eco-initiatives, the pinhole camera actually has another extension where a plastic bottle can be used as a tripod for long exposure photos. “We also designed a joint for the camera to adapt to plastic bottles selling on the market as a tripod for the long exposure of photos. This came from our own experiences as pinhole camera users. We believe this can really help users as they can have a tripod easily from the plastic bottle from their hand,” added Amos and Sharon.

Foldabox by Rachel Wan & Mandy Wong

Many people would prefer dining out, rather than bringing their own lunchbox to work as it may cause many troubles such as leakages of juice, bringing multiple bags, and time wasted in lining-up for the microwave oven. For these reasons, the FOLDABOX set was designed especially for office ladies, bringing them a warm, convenience and new eating style.

The Design Concept is as follows:

The FOLDABOX set includes an Induction Cooker and a foldable lunchbox. The IC cooker can solve the time wasting problem in lining- up for a microwave oven as users can use it to reheat the lunchbox at their own desk. With the special folding design, it can be folded such as a piece of paper is folded. Users can fold it to a smaller size storing inside their bags after use.