A design for life

Fans of Jeff Dayu Shi, an internationally acclaimed designer, had a pleasant surprise at the beginning of this year. Not only had he, somewhat unexpectedly, designed a new product representing the Year of the Rabbit, but it went on to win a German Design Award Special Mention.

In a letter of congratulations on Shi's selection for the German Design Award 2023, Lutz Dietold, CEO of the German Design Council, said that the German Design Award is one of the most renowned of its kind worldwide, enjoying an excellent reputation far beyond professional circles, noting that those who beat off such high-calibre competition have successfully proved that they are among the best in their field.

In 2010, Shi started an ambitious 12-year design program for the traditional Chinese zodiac series, creating mugs to celebrate China's years of the rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox and tiger.

"As the program was completed last year, I did not expect him to create anything related to the Year of the Rabbit (which started on Jan 22)," says Wan Xiang, a fan in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

This unexpected, prize winning work came in the form of a coffee-dripper set. Shi's inspiration stems from the rapid rise in the number of Chinese coffee consumers during the pandemic.

Shi learned that, according to a report of Coffee Engineering Research Center of China, the national consumption of coffee beans was 250,000 metric tons in 2021, an increase of more than 25 percent over the previous year. This indicates the broad potential for hand-drip coffee in the Chinese market.

"The unexpected global pandemic has forced us to change our way of life — the way we work, play, shop and relax. With longer days living at home, some people started to learn cooking, some picked up books that had not been read for a long time, and others began to learn to make a cup of good hand-drip coffee," Shi says.

"These are daily rituals that reignite the sense of life, the necessary wonderful musical notes that bring a peaceful mind during the times of disaster. Good drinkware, like a musical instrument, is worth the attention of detailed functional craftsmanship. Hence, the CT62 hand-drip coffee series came into being," he says.

In December 2021, Shi met Yuan Cheng "Jake" Hu, head judge of World Coffee Events from 2016 to 2022, in Taipei, Taiwan.

"We analyzed and judged the current market, and were determined to design a coffee-making appliance with excellent functions and Chinese cultural genes," Shi says.

He integrated the professional requirements, such as an efficient and uniform extraction principle and smooth flow rate, as prompted by Hu, into his design. He conducted deeper exploration into the fields of ease of use, material texture and interaction method. And he carefully studied and tested details, such as the appearance and texture of the filter cup, the glaze color and the functionality of the handle, and finally created a novel and practical coffee-dripper set.

Shi had introduced the rabbit element in his design inspired by a mural painting which depicts three rabbits with shared ears in a cave in Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu province.

The three rabbits are each running and connected to each other, symbolizing unity and peace.

The Taoist classic Tao Te Ching states that "one begets two; two begets three; three begets the myriad creatures", which means the revival of all things and the rejuvenation of the Earth, Shi says.

Born in 1964 to parents who moved to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland in 1949, Shi studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and later worked as a designer for the luxury jewelry company Harry Winston. In 1996, he won the De Beers Diamonds International Award, the equivalent of the Oscars for the jewelry industry.

As an American citizen, who has been living in Beijing since before the COVID-19 pandemic, Shi loves to incorporate bamboo and other natural materials in his designs.

More than 30 of his works have won awards on the international design stage, including the German Design Award and the Red Dot Design Award. He was honored with a Red Dot Design Award for four years in a row from 2009 to 2012 for designs including the bamboo chairs Jun-Zi and Qin-Jian. His creativity has gained a spotlight on the international design scene.

To acknowledge his contribution to bamboo design, the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization included Shi in its 2017 publication"100 Heroes of China's Bamboo Industry" and invited him to present a keynote speech at the inaugural Global Bamboo and Rattan Congress in Beijing in June 2018.