Chinese Design

Original article: China's Design Crisis
Article with additional comments: A Chinese Designer Speaks Out on Chinese Design

In Bruce Nussbaum's original article, he wrote that design firms working in China are hiring designers from Western cultures or from Korea, instead of designers from China, because designers trained in China are "below standard." Bruce writes:

"[Y]oung designers want to get things done quickly, without much regard for getting it just right. It’s a quick-quick attitude. As for innovating, reframing problems and seeing products and services with fresh eyes, Chinese designers are not nearly there."

In the follow up article, Bruce writes that a designer from China, Lucy, commented on his previous article, writing that it wasn't really the designers fault; that it was the society in China that made it difficult for young designers to not do something quickly. She writes:

"The clients, mostly domestic brands and manufacturers, are not seeing the difference between a “right” and “not so right” design yet. The fact that some of them are hiring design firms to design anything original is a big step forward, when copying a cell phone to save the time, money, and trouble (in testing the tools and market, etc. as we all know) is not exactly illegal in China."

To me, that's like saying "toh-may-toh"/"toh-mah-toh" - Whether it's the schools, the designers or the society, it's still the fact that China, as a whole, is behind in the design industry. It's a scary thought that the most populated country in the world is behind in design.