The long-awaited domestic design event, the “New Generation Design Exhibition,” will be held in physical form from May 19th to 22nd after a three-year hiatus. Students from the Department of Commercial Design at Chung Yuan Christian University have been nominated for various awards at the event, including the Golden Pin Design Award for Communication Design, Digital Media Design, and Industry-Academia Collaboration Design. Recently, the winners of the “New Generation Design-Industry Collaboration” award were announced, and the “Wee! Parent-Child Communication Kit” developed by Chung Yuan’s Commercial Design department in collaboration with the Children’s Welfare Alliance received the prestigious gold award recognition at the event. This serves as the first wave of good news for the graduation projects of the 36th batch this year!
The “New Generation Design-Industry Collaboration” program involves interdisciplinary collaboration and the cultivation of exceptional talent through the approach of “enterprises posing questions, students solving problems.” This year, the Children’s Welfare Alliance posed a challenge on how to use design to create equal dialogue between children, adolescents, and the adults around them to promote “children and adolescents’ right to expression.” The “Wee! Parent-Child Communication Kit” designed and developed by Li Zixuan, Hong Qiwen, and Chen Huiqing from Chung Yuan Christian University is a tool kit that emphasizes “communication” and is meant to be shared between adults and children. With its vibrant colors and adorable design, the kit encourages children to engage in hands-on assembly while adults observe and inquire, thus facilitating equal communication and dialogue between parents and children. To further enhance the project, Li Qiting from the Department of Psychology at Kaohsiung Medical University was invited to provide consultations on child and adult clinical psychology-related matters.
Associate Professor Huang Wenzong, the supervising teacher from the Department of Commercial Design, expressed great joy over the students’ achievement of the gold award. He attributed this success not only to the students’ hard work but also to the assistance provided by senior students in areas such as questionnaire surveys, home visits, interactive prototype design, and iterative testing. Chung Yuan Christian University has always encouraged students to embrace a people-centered design philosophy. For instance, another group of students collaborated with the Taiwan Anti-Violence Coalition to explore the issue of domestic violence and created an animation titled “Last Crane – The Last Origami Crane.” Their aim was to raise awareness of the importance of “informed trauma” and collectively address the issue of child and adolescent domestic violence, hoping to impact more individuals and foster understanding.
