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WAS NOT a brochure for an industrial design course that came out of a National University of Singapore (NUS) flyer, Hans Tan would have stayed at his study project business and perhaps departed with a business man of the year
Instead, he has just received another honor – Designer of the Year – at the design awards of the President this year. This comes after Mr. Tan received the Design of the Year award in 2015 for his table Pour and in 2012, for his collection of Spotted Nyonya vessels. The President's Design Award is the country's highest design award.
The designer award of the year is the latest in a long list of honors. In 2009, Mr. Tan was named by the Korean magazine Designnet as one of 36 young Asian designers and won the 2009 Martell Rising Personalities Award, which honors people from different creative fields who dare to push the boundaries of success.
. ] Tan graduated from NUS with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Industrial Design in 2005 and, two years later, graduated cum laude from Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
His works, which blur the lines between design, craftsmanship and art are preserved in private collections, as well as in permanent public collections of the National Collection of Singapore; M + Museum of Visual Culture, Hong Kong; and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York
. Since 2007, he runs his eponymous studio. Mr. Tan, 38, is also Assistant Professor, Industrial Design Division, NUS. His award-winning record is not limited to his works. He is also a three-time winner of the NUS Annual Excellent Teaching Award
You were accepted to study business, but then you moved on to an industrial design course. Why did you do it?
Child, I was bad at art and drawing. I'm always. I've always wanted to study business, but I've had the opportunity to move on to industrial design. When I saw the flyer for the Industrial Design course, it covered three things: engineering, business, and design. I was good at college bookkeeping and my favorite subject was high school physics, so I felt good in two of the three areas. It is only during the industrial design course that I learned the design. This has opened my eyes to a way of marking notes without having to do academic things.
What is your role as a designer?
I see design as a means of communicating a new perspective on everyday life, or the story of Singapore. The idea that I can use design to tell a story about our identity really appeals to me. Some people see design as a means to an end. But I think that design as a communication tool is significant because it has the ability to reach a wider audience. Everyone relates to design; By that I mean that everyone can enjoy a beautiful bowl or chair. Art also has a communication function, but it is more abstract and you need prior knowledge to understand it. The design is more accessible to the masses.
Do you have a design style?
I would not say that I have a style, but what I constantly deal with in my works, is the Singapore legacy. It's always a common thought chain in what I produce. I am interested in our heritage, because I have direct access to it and I am part of it. This is also a reason why I chose to return to Singapore after doing my masters, even though I had offers to stay in the Netherlands. Being in Singapore, I can answer questions about what makes our country like it is, to which I respond through design.
When it comes to objects, is there a Singaporean design? [19659002] My honest answer is that any thing designed by a Singaporean is a Singapore design. But Singaporean design identity is only something that you can see in retrospect. It is difficult to define, although industrial design in Singapore has been flourishing over the last 10 to 15 years. Maybe in five years we can get a better idea of the Singaporean product. Compared to our architecture, industrial design is still very young in Singapore.
Nowadays, most design graduates end up working for someone else. But you started your studio immediately after graduation.
I was part of the generation where creative opportunities in large companies were hard to come by. Looking back, it was a good thing because a lot of independent designers started doing things by themselves. Now the design scene is pretty open, and many organizations are big on design. I would say that our graduates have an easier time getting jobs that are fairly well paid. At the time, I had to find my own way and sometimes you had to do it alone
Can you make a living as a designer?
For the first two years, when I started my studio, I was financially poor. I even had to decide if it was worth it to spend more money on chicken rice or economic rice. But I was extremely rich in experience, influenced by design and the art scene here and trying to find my own voice. It was a beautiful period, supported in a way by people around me and without savings. I gave myself two years. If the studio did not work, I would find a job. I have received offers to teach part time and I have had the chance to combine what I wanted to do as a designer with my passion for teaching. I wanted to convey what I learned at Design Academy. The teaching is similar to the design. I choreograph an activity, so that when students walk through it, they learn, and they practice what they have learned. It's different from the more traditional way, where there is talk of mentorship.
I have been teaching for nine years. I do two full-time jobs: design and teach. The teaching gave me the financial support to open my studio in order to do more work. I am now at the stage where all the money I earn from the studio is used for experiments and projects, while teaching supports the family.
Is this enough for Singaporean designers like you? [19659002] The DesignSingapore Board has played a significant role in improving the design scene, with scholarships and business opportunities. However, there is one thing that I feel that can be improved. We tend to think of design as an economic engine. In many other countries, design is part of the art. One way to push Singapore's design is to start looking at design as a cultural engine rather than an economic factor. If we can make design more culture-based, we can get people to better appreciate their culture. Maybe we could have a design museum. When we display a design outside of a showcase, we see the design differently, not just an object for sale. It's the same with stamps; have them in a museum and we see them as part of history and culture.
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