Recently, the final list of winners for the 17th A' Design Awards in 2024 was announced, and Sizhe Huang has been the winner in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design for her personal project Umi. This is another international design award that the project has won after a series of world-renowned awards such as the 2023 European Product Design Awards, the 2023 London Design Awards, the 2023 Muse Design Award, the 2024 DNA Paris Design Awards, etc.
Sizhe Huang is a distinguished designer who has great expertise in Interaction Design and User Experience Design, and now she works as the product designer for Lucid Motors. Meanwhile, she also serves as a member of the Industrial Designer Society of American, the China Industrial Design Association and the Creative Designer Salon of China, owing to her significant contributions to the design industry. She has designed various outstanding works, and one of her personal projects, Umi, has been honored with the A' Design Award this year.
The A' Design Award, established in 2008, has swiftly become one of the most prestigious accolades in the global design community. Recognized for its rigorous evaluation process, this international competition celebrates excellence in innovation, functionality, and societal impact. The award's grand jury, composed of world-renowned designers, industry professionals, and academic leaders, ensures that only the most exceptional work is honored, making the competition fiercely competitive. Winning an A' Design Award not only symbolizes a designer's ability to meet the highest standards in the field but also serves as a powerful endorsement of their visionary approach to solving complex design challenges.
Over the years, the A' Design Award has been awarded to industry giants like Samsung, Sony, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. This year, Umi joined these esteemed ranks by winning the award from over 50,000 submissions from 114 countries, with only 3.2% of designs achieving this prestigious recognition. Umi stands alongside global powerhouses such as MUJI, Geely, and Baidu, exemplifying the award's core values: the pursuit of design that not only meets functional needs but also enhances the quality of life, fosters cultural growth, and drives technological and social evolution.
From the award-winning works of the A' Design Awards, it can be seen that good designs not only require broad recognition and high innovation, but also the ability that how it can provide a better future for humanity. Sizhe's project, Umi, confirmed this point very well. More and more people, in the fast-paced, globally interconnected world, are apt to be trapped in emotional void, where their interpersonal connections become less intimate and more abstract. At this time, Umi is born as a holistic solution, a visionary design project, which aims to revolutionize long-distance communication by restoring the sense of personal connection and emotional intimacy.
In the design process, Sizhe always insists on starting from user experience and is committed to providing innovative design products. The Umi ecosystem harmoniously blends a physical product the Pebble and the Nest with an intuitive digital application designed for both mobile and watch devices. This integration allows the translation of digital communications into a more tactile, sensory experience. It seeks to enhance emotional bonds between friends and loved ones, irrespective of geographical barriers.
Umi embodies Sizhe's profound design philosophy and creates significant social values. It is not just a product but a human-centric innovation. This project reimagines the future of personal connectivity, making digital interactions as real and resonant as physical ones. As a result, it supports mental health by nurturing emotional connections in an increasingly digital world, which contributes to societal emotional sustainability. Besides, Umi represents a disruptive innovation in the fields of business and design, with the potential to redefine the market for communication devices and applications. It offers a unique value proposition that combines emotional depth with digital convenience, which not only sets new standards for consumer expectations, but also opens new avenues for growth, competition, and differentiation in the technology industry.
Another of Sizhe's projects, XYG Window, draws inspiration from ancient Chinese literati seal fonts and the window designs of Suzhou's classical gardens, merging cultural heritage with contemporary design principles. This fusion of traditional Chinese art forms with modern visual communication pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of China. XYG Window seeks to bridge the past and present by reimagining literati elements in a contemporary context. The project deconstructs traditional Chinese characters, reorganizing the strokes to reflect the essence of traditional seals while embracing modern simplicity through the elimination of decorative elements. The design is further refined using the Fibonacci spiral, creating a balanced and harmonious visual identity. The yin and yang spaces on the webpage are ingeniously integrated as navigational tools, inviting users to explore the brand's story and immerse themselves in the cultural legacy that inspired the design.
Sizhe, as the lead designer in this project, has made original contributions. She successfully translated the traditional art forms into a digital format, ensuring that the essence of the literati seal font and the Suzhou garden windows was preserved in the modern visual identity. Her expertise in interaction design allowed her to effectively integrate the yin and yang navigational elements, creating an intuitive and immersive user experience on website. This innovative approach, blending cultural heritage with contemporary design principles, was recognized at the 2023 Red Dot Design Awards—one of the most prestigious international design competitions. Created in 1955, the Red Dot Design Award is known for its rigorous evaluation process, with only 8.9% of the approximately 20,000 submissions winning the coveted award each year. Sizhe's contributions were instrumental in securing this recognition, underscoring her ability to marry traditional aesthetics with modern design, a key factor in the project's international acclaim.
Drop Houses, another eminent multimedia project of Sizhe creates a futuristic design approach of experience and interaction in a digital era, which has been exhibited at the 2023 London Design Festival and the 2024 NYCxDESIGN Festival. It merges interaction and user experience (UX) design with architectural innovation, crafting a forward-looking vision of residential spaces experience tailored to our digital-era lifestyles. By envisioning homes that respond dynamically to the digital needs of their inhabitants, Drop Houses redefines how we experience living spaces in the 21st century. Based on User-Centered Design Approach, it introduces a design framework that tailors living environments to individual needs, blending digital and physical interaction to create a truly integrated user experience.
Drop Houses introduces a new paradigm where the design of living spaces is directly influenced by virtual interactions, thus redefining what it means to create spaces that are truly suited to 21st-century living, and pushing the boundaries of both architecture and UX design. It demonstrates how designers can think beyond the current limitations of their fields, encouraging a more expansive view of what interaction design can accomplish.
The three major projects all indicate Sizhe Huang's great expertise in innovative design and her distinctive design concept, which has made significant and original contributions to the interaction and user experience. In the future, Sizhe will endeavor to create more sustainable user experiences and advance the industry with her more innovative designs. (BY Holy Minoza)
