Last week, went across the article bout Paul Rand from a website.
Paul Rand (August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs’s NeXT. He was one of the first American commercial artists to embrace and practice the Swiss Style of graphic design. (Wikipedia, 2015)


Rand emphasizes the fruitful combination of cross-disciplinary curiosity, technical knowledge, and intuition in the creative problem-solving process.
" To achieve an effective solution to his problem, the designer must necessarily go through some sort of mental process. Conscious or not, he analyzes, interprets, formulates. He is aware of the scientific and technological developments in his own and kindred fields. He improvises, invents, or discovers new techniques and combinations. He co-ordinates and integrates his material so that he may restate his problem in terms of ideas, signs, symbols, pictures. He unifies, simplifies, and eliminates superfluities. He symbolizes — abstracts from his material by association and analogy. He intensifies and reinforces his symbol with appropriate accessories to achieve clarity and interest. He draws upon instinct and intuition. He considers the spectator, his feelings and predilections. " – Paul Rand

I remember that when i was in the age 20, I only know how to copy and paste. 100% copycat. At that time with the limitation of my design skill, i did not have own thinking. Every time the assignments were given, i just go pick some reference from the net, trace it, follow back the reference and submit without thinking any cause.

At the mid-age of 20s, I began to learn how to create thing by not copying 100%. Firstly, i will start with research, get as much information and reference. Then from there based on the data and reference that I got, I will create something, try not follow as much as possible. This is so called modification. Now days there’s hard to find 100% original idea/design, usually most of the thing based on reference.
During these period, I start like to travel around even near to my house. I began learn how to observe other places’ local culture arts. For example, Chinese like red, Indian like purple.
A successful designer must have an eye for design and good observation skills. It is the ability to see and observe that will be an added value. These are my thought about design.