Fu Jen Catholic University, Department of Applied Arts

The Department of Applied Arts was founded in 1984 as part of the College of Arts at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taipei and was the first of its kind in Taiwan. Depending on different interests and inclinations, students can choose their major from four areas starting the second year of study: computer animation, metalwork production, visual communication and interior design. The aim of the department is to help students develop their aesthetic potential and train creative and effective designers with a high level of professional competence. Other goals include strengthening respect for humanity and moral ethics and promoting creative thinking by inspiring students’ imagination and creativity and encouraging them to adopt innovative approaches and explore new ways of thinking.In this specific project, the students were supported by their teachers Chen Yong-Wei, Wu Pei-Ying, Hu Fa-Hsiang and Yu Chia-Yin.

Fu Jen Catholic University, Department of Applied Arts interviewed by Red Dot

Red Dot: What does design mean to you?
Fu Jen Catholic University, Department of Applied Arts: Design, just like the service industry, is there to do something for people, to bring them more beauty.

How would you define good communication design?
I think idea and idiom are secondary, the most important thing is the needs of customers – if the customers feel good, then it’s good.

What makes your work unique?
Unchanging faith makes our work unique. Although we constantly improve the appearance of our works in the process, our faith and ideas always remain consistent.

Was your award-winning work inspired by current social issues?
It is not so much a social issue as an extension of social background. We define “Generation Z” as our background, and this generation focuses on social, communication, truth and influence. And we would like to express that this is a group of creatives who are working together on design and art and want guide people in how to imagine the future.

Please describe the concept of creativity against the background of your award-winning work.             The core concept of the work is to create a key vision that represents the fresh graduates and to extend the design concept from there. “Star.t” can be interpreted as a formula: star+t(time)-st=art, starting from the initial star and describing the star as a goal, ideal, dream or vision. The addition of time means that we need time to lay the groundwork while working towards our goal so that we can start to accumulate different experiences to form a progression. Subtracting the remaining art from the previous “st” expresses that regardless of the previous process, no matter what experiences we have had, they all come together and become the currency of the Department of Applied Arts system because they have similar goals. Brewing all the emotions and energy here, we will start the next “Star.t” cycle by exploring the external power.