The 2020 Golden Pin Design Award has announced today (Dec. 3) that the Honorary Award shall be awarded to the incumbent World Design Organization (WDO) regional advisor Tony K.M. Chang for his contribution to and achievement in the Taiwanese design scene. The recipient will officially receive the award during the awards ceremony to be held in Taipei on December 11.
The inaugural Golden Pin Design Award 2020 Honorary Award celebrates iconic individuals who have made exceptional achievements in or significant contributions to the Taiwanese design scene. Nominees to the award are jointly selected by Taiwanese design organizations and the Golden Pin Design Award jury, and the recipient is selected by the Final Selection jury. This year’s Honorary Award is awarded to Tony K.M. Chang, who has devoted over thirty years of his life to Taiwanese design.
During his employment at the Design Promotion Center of the China External Trade Development Council between 1975 and 1993, Chang was tasked with designing over one hundred exhibition pavilions for Taiwan’s participation in international trade shows and exhibitions and used design thinking to change existing international impressions of Taiwan’s exhibition pavilions. He also served as a principal investigator on various government-backed projects from 1991 to 2013, where he helped pool resources from different sectors to improve the design capabilities of Taiwanese industries, laying down the foundation for Taiwanese products to win international design awards in the future. In 2003, Chang helped establish the national organization Taiwan Design Center (TDC) and was appointed as its first CEO.
During his time at TDC, Chang was committed to building an integrated service platform to drive the development of the Taiwanese design industry, facilitate international design exchange, and promote design aesthetics learning and awareness with the public. Specific achievements include organizing the annual Taiwan Design Exhibition (now the Taiwan Design Expo), which greatly increased creative design awareness in different sectors. In 2011, Chang helped Taipei City win the right to host the International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress; the event was attended by design professionals from fifty-six countries around the world and was hailed as a benchmark event for the IDA. He also organized the first Taipei World Design Expo—the first interdisciplinary design exhibition of its kind in the world—in the same year. The event reached a scope unprecedented and not seen in many years, attracting over 1.36 million visitors. Ralph Wiegmann, then CEO of iF International Forum Design, further recognized it as one of the most excellent and high-quality design exhibitions he’d ever seen.
Chang also personally actively supports the development of the Taiwanese design industry. For example, in 2008, he brought together design organizations in different fields of design to found the Taiwan Design Alliance (TDA). He was appointed the first chairman of TDA, paving the way for interdisciplinary collaboration within the design community. He is also an active participant in many international design organizations, where he facilitates international design exchanges and spares no efforts in improving the visibility of Taiwanese design. Chang is one of only ten individuals in the world to be named to the Executive Board of the World Design Organization three times and is regularly invited to serve on the juries of authoritative design awards around the world such as the German iF Product Design Award and Red Dot Design Award, thus representing Taiwan and bolstering the acknowledgment of Taiwanese design by the international design community.
Since his time at the Design Promotion Center of the China External Trade Development Council, Chang has devoted over 30 years of his life to the Taiwanese design scene. Known as a walking dictionary on the developmental history of Taiwanese design, he has witnessed creative design’s thread of development in Taiwan’s many industries. When informed of his award win, Chang humbly stated that he merely tries his best to do what is right and has had help from many people in different stages of his life: “I am most grateful of the government’s support and its faith in us, which allowed us to truly accomplish something for Taiwan. I would also like to extend my thanks to my team and the entire design community, as these goals would not be achieved on my own.”
The awards ceremony for the 2020 Golden Pin Design Awards will be held in Taipei on December 11. The winners of the Best Design and the Special Annual Awards will be revealed during the ceremony, which will be live-streamed on the official Facebook page and YouTube channel in both Mandarin and English (starts from 18:00 GMT+8). For the latest news on the Golden Pin Design Award, please visit the official website (https://www.goldenpin.org.tw/en/) and follow on social media.
