Why Asian designers accel and at the same time fall behind their western counterparts

In my career and travels thus far, I have noticed distinct reasons why western designers accel over Asian designers in certain areas and vice versa.

Much of being a successful and sensitive designer is empathy and experience in a particular product field. Take Formula 1 auto racing which has been around since the 1950s. Most Formula 1 designers are steeped in mechanical design and aerodynamics from their childhoods. They probably spent many hours at the track through the decades observing speed and how it is achieved. This full immersion in the sport of Formula 1 gives a distinct advantage over say a Chinese designer trained in Beijing in the same disciplines of mechanical design and aerodynamics. Without the childhood experiences at the track, there is no way the Beijing trained designer can imagine the next innovation or improvement in the sport because of their lack of immersion and number of years in and around the sport.

Another such example is high performance sailing. The cultures with the oldest heritages in yachting will always be ahead of cultures that are behind in nautical design and epistemology. If a Korean designer only learns the fundamentals in his university studies and maybe specializes in fluid dynamics as a PhD, he still will not be able to imagine the next level of innovation or need to go faster with lighter materials or stronger technology. Without that childhood immersion in boats, sailing, nautical lingo and experience in competition within the sport, there is now way to achieve the level of intensity or raison d'etre that is necessary to create the next level of high performance.

Now, on the other side Asian designers far exceed the talent needed to generate the next level of sophistication in electronics design due to the same phenomena. Japanese designers from birth are surrounded by sophisticated efficiency in manufacturing and assembly. Instead of enjoying themselves in a power boat on the lake near Osaka, they are hanging around the factory observing and immersed in the discipline of sophisticated electronics design, manufacture and innovation. They grow up fiddling with electronics and finding new ways of improving their lives with electronics.

There is a sea change going on now as China builds it middle class bourgeois consumer society. Children today in China will have the advantage of experimenting and playing with the latest in consumer goods, sporting goods, electronics, toys, cars, lawn mowers etc, just as western children did in the last 40 years. This will give them the necessary abstract imagination to improve and apply the knowledge they get from formal education they receive at the university level in design and engineering.

Where western designers and engineers can accel and keep their edge, is to quickly learn the history of culture of these new developing bourgeois consumer societies and design for them instead of designing for a group who's numbers are shrinking.

Otherwise in a generation western designers will be using electric cars that go 110 miles an hour on a 20 minute charge and will be wondering why there is a incense burner where the ashtray used to be.