"The distance between a brand and its consumer is only 30 centimeters!" Iris Lee, Chairperson of the Taiwan Packaging Design Association, says with a smile. That’s the exact moment when a consumer reaches for a product on the shelf—just 30 centimeters away, yet it’s key to whether the brand will be chosen.

As AI technology floods into various industries like a rising tide, will interior design be replaced, or will it lead the transformation? We invited Joe Lin Yan-ying, co-founder of YPA (Yen Partnership Architects) , to share insights from his years of spatial practice and cultural reflection. He discusses the current state of interior design in Taiwan—poised between creativity and planning, serving both as a container of life and a meeting point of history and technology.

“Building a brand isn’t about catering to the market; it’s about creating the market.” Alan Yi Wei-shen, founder of Afterain Design and CEO of the Chinese Industrial Designers Association (CIDA), has extensive experience in brand building.

"Before the age of 30, very few of the people around me were designers. Most of my classmates were in sales. So being pragmatic and practical had already become a habit." Jerry Wang, Design Director at U Visual Communication and current Chairman of Taiwan Graphic Design Association, who graduated with a degree in management, speaks of his academic journey with the romance of a designer yet the pragmatism of a businessman. “Design cannot be just about aesthetics,” he says with a smile.