AGUA Design: Poetry in Motion
Taipei, Taiwan / 05.01.2010
Focus on AGUA Design
by Hsiao-Yun Chu
AGUA Design is a Taipei based firm notable for a wide range of work
since1994, ranging from fine stationery products to public projects such
as City Yeast, conceptual projects, and collaborative branding works.
The beating heart of AGUA Design is undoubtedly its founder, agua (Chou
Yu Lu) who is passionately committed to her work and energetic about
using design to communicate with the world.
AGUA's stationery products, from
notebooks to calendars, are designed with exquisite attention to
detail. From the delicate, line illustrations to the poetic phrases
tucked inside the pages, these small notebooks inspire the creative
effort. The unusual craftsmanship, such as the exposed, red stitched
bindings, and thoughtful details such as perforated tabs for marking
important pages transform the notebook into a trusted friend.
Over the past fifteen years, Agua has
partnered with private and public companies to research customer needs
and to develop or assist with marketing or branding campaigns. Its
extensive client list includes companies as diverse as Macallan, Tissot,
Benetton, Epson and Harry Winston. agua has also worked with local
companies and organizations. For example, they partnered with Taiwan's
National Palace Museum to develop contemporary products for the
museum's gift shop, as described in the interview below. On the more
conceptual develop side, Plan Global is an important part of agua's
mission. Plan Global is a long term strategy for "creating value through
original design" with the global community in mind. aqua has engaged in
number of projects under the umbrella of Plan Global, notably City
Yeast, an project that started in Taipei in 2006 and has enlivened and
enhanced Taipei and other cities on a regular basis since then. City
Yeast invites residents to contribute ideas for how to improve their
city, and provides opportunities to realize some of these ideas.
Over the past four years, the City
Yeast initiative has included community design workshops, photographic
projects, and exhibitions of the resultant work. A good example of a
City Yeast project was Yellow Chair Blossom, which invited residents of
Taipei to create their own yellow chair to enliven their city. Several
generations of residents celebrated their creations in a Taipei park, a
veritable explosion of color and community spirit. In addition, the
bright yellow chairs were exhibited at various venues in Taipei,
perhaps inspiring others to go off and create their own special chair.
Over the past four years, they have
had 800,000 visitors, 17 exhibitions oversea and 682 participants who
joined the workshops. They had 2200 ideas for the city. They have
15,000 subscribers to the newsletter. So many people support this idea;
they believe that everybody can join as a "yeast" in the city to make
the city better, and how to make themselves better. Their ideas are
really creative.
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