We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Zhanling Feng about their original and creative Breaktime Tableware Set design work. Zhanling Feng is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original breaktime tableware set works.
Zhanling Feng ("ZF") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Tri Chapter Breaktime Tableware Set. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
ZF : Our initial sparks came from the te m’s common interest in science fiction. Science fiction is the extraordinary story of innovation and imagination. In the past 100 years, it keeps asking numerous “what if, what if” questions. We believe that the science fiction is more than almost any other genre has been a remarkably revealing window onto our ambitions and anxieties, our dreams and our nightmares.
ZF : It is a collection that reforms conventional drinking experience with sleek lines and sinuous surfaces. We try to bring the power of tranquillity to people’s dinning rituals. Pulling away from the time & space currently inhabited, we may experience a magical journey from bud to neuron.
ZF : Some objects of this collection were mass-produced. We launching them in the market to see how people like them. In fact, we attended 100%design emerging brand section in London this year, from which we got good feedback. People like to play with our objects to feel the difference. We also want to attend more exhibitions and fairs to let more people know our design philosophy through this collection
ZF : It was nearly a year and a half since we started to think about this idea. We then did the design, and we changed and refined many times after lots of reviews, research and prototype testing. Then we attended Salone del Mobile Shanghai Satellite exhibition, according to the feedback from that, we did some modification. After that, we spent much time on manufacturing and refining the whole process, which also requires some tiny change of the design as well. Therefore, it was a long journey to build this design.
ZF : We regard ourselves as a group of sino-futurism, and search for the egocentric way of design narrative. We utilise our provocatively aesthetic perception for re-interpreting philosophical essence into contemporary design pieces. We explore the innovative moments of life scenarios, observe the diversity of emotional needs, and evoke people convey imaginative attitudes to lifestyles via playing with our objects. This design shows this philosophy.
ZF : This design belongs to our own company. In fact, we've produced some objects though it is still in a preliminary period. We intend to produce and sell them by ourselves.
ZF : mutuopia by Mutto Group stands for a unique expression and an introspection of modernisation. We hope our work is the story of our life journey, continually evolving, searching and changing. Since our common interests in science fiction, we want to use our work to show our interests. In addition, we feel the drinking ware and experience were not changed for a long time, we wanted to do something to make it modern and different yet still user-friendly. It also can show why we regard ourselves as sino-futurisim.
ZF : We have eight designers working on this brand, basically, four product designers are working on the main idea. Other graphic designers do some help for review and advisement.
ZF : Basically, we use software to build 3D models, like Rhino and keyshot. Then we also use 3D-printing technology to make the prototypes to do the user test.
ZF : The form and colour are a unique aspect of the design. Triangular and circular shapes are being played in both two-dimension and three-dimension to build sharp yet mellow containers. Triangular and circular shapes are not easy to combine together in such a balance form and it has not been seen in any tableware collections. Though this collection is very geometric, functional, durable and as well as delicate because of we discretionally concerned about ergonomics. And the colour we used is not common to see in this area because it is a new technology application.
