About Chang Creative

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Who I am

Other than making a living from designing, marketing and teaching, I am also a passionate traveler, florist and cook. Many friends think I am a “Jack of all trades.” I tell them, “I’ll do anything for a (or no) buck”. Trained in American art school during my formative years, I am addicted to design principles and the problem solving process. When I cook a serious meal, I start first by conceptualizing the overall theme, fragrance, flavor, texture, look and feel that I want to create... With a calligraphy pen in hand, I begin to outline the menu on aged parchment. While I sort out dishes into the right sequence of courses, colors and forms begin to take shape. Then, through hand-drawn thumbnail sketches, I create a little vignette of my dishes. I have designed meals around flowers, created full course aborigine dinners from hors d'oeuvres to dessert, and incorporated other exotic travel themes into my cooking. I am a citizen of the global village; I treasure experiences in life more than anything. When I exit the world, I want to have a pink aura on my face and say “Yes, I have lived, touched many lives, and I have given it my all.” That would be the greatest achievement of all for me.

I am a perpetual student of Life. Born the youngest child, I have never given up my sense of play. I have always been curious; I want to learn everything that catches my attention. If there is one word that could sum up my life, it would be “learning”. Raised in an upper-middle class family in Taiwan by parents who were both educators (although they’re not your typical kind of teachers; they were at opposite ends of the spectrum: Dad legislated Taiwanese education laws and Mom was a kindergarten teacher), I was free to design my own education. I had my first taste in academic freedom when I went for college in the United States. I changed my major seven times: from Chinese Literature to English Literature to Linguistics to Printmaking to Graphic Design to Environmental Design and finally to Industrial Design. I felt like a sailor navigating the vast ocean of knowledge; whenever I settled in one harbor, I would see the beauty of the harbor across the way and then embark again on yet another journey. By the time I finally graduated, I had two double major degrees, one in English and Graphic Design, and the other in Environmental Design and Industrial Design. Upon graduation, I selected my thesis in “Philadelphia Chinatown Street Furniture Design”, for the reason that I was the only Chinese student in my class of graduates, and I wanted a project that involved graphic/industrial and environmental design and which synthesized all aspects of who I am and what I learned in school.

Years later, when I was a marketing/design director at RSCG Conran Design Pacific in Hong Kong, I undertook a comprehensive signage system design project for the Housing Authority. In a nut shell, any colors, typography, numerals and pictograms used for subsidized housing estate signage purposes fell into the jurisdiction of this program. We began by understanding the use of signage in Asia, where the Chinese language is used in parallel with English. There were plenty of guidelines for designing English signs for viewing distance, readability, legibility and visibility, but very few guidelines for the use of Chinese signs. Thus, we began by first devising a ratio of Chinese to English X-height to be used in our signs, and then selected a font that would be easy for reading and comprehension.

In the research phase, I referenced a great deal of Gestalt theory for the naked eye; using my linguistic background, I was able to put together a modular design kit that catered to the easy understanding of viewers. I applied standard principles in cognition, syntax and deep structure to “chunk and layer” information and to devise landmarks and maps. We then developed path-finding rules in orientation, direction, reassurance and arrival. The final product was a signage manual of over 200 pages, which provided guidelines for 3.5 million of Hong Kong’s population and its 185 housing estates. Faced with a project of this complexity, I would have never have been able to convince the 200 architects at the Housing authority of the design solutions without my valuable liberal arts background. Learning is never wasted. I liken it to building a house from the ground up: the bigger the foundation, the higher the building it can support.

In the same way, my life has been built upon layers and layers of experiences, lessons, and learning. Included in those precious layers are my professional experiences from designing, teaching, branding, marketing, and fund-raising as well as my personal explorations from travel, cooking, reading, and floral arrangement. The subject matter of my studies may have changed due to different circumstances, but my attitude, value, and approach have remained unchanged.