Born in Hong Kong, settled in Canada with his parents at age 14, industrial designer Kitmen Keung spent a decade living in Vancouver where he completed high school and undergraduate art education. In 2003, moved to Milan, under supervision of Italian designer Stefano Giovannoni and American architect Hani Rashid he received his Master of Design from Domus Academy. Throughout his stay in Italy, he had the opportunity to work with international brands such as Artemide, Ermenegildo Zegna, Oregon Scientific, Mitsubishi and Gas etc. Kitmen was selected as one of the Four Hong Kong Emerging Designers by Elle Deco Magazine in 2008; received the 7th annual Art Directors Club Young Guns Award in New York in 2009; and was named one of the 36 most essential Young Asian Designers by Korean monthly magazine Designnet in 2010.

姜傑文, 出生於香港, 14歲隨父母移居溫哥華, 在當地中學畢業後開始接受北美正規的藝術教育, 2003年離開加拿大並前往米蘭入讀Domus設計學院, 於意大利設計師Stefano Giovannoni及美國建築師Hani Rashid的監督下取得工業設計學碩士。 在歐洲期間曾參與多個國際品牌的產品設計研究項目, 包括Artemide, Ermenegildo Zegna, Oregon Scientific, 三菱電器及Gas等。 他於2008年被Elle Deco雜誌選為四位香港新銳設計師之一; 2009年獲頒紐約Art Directors Club第七屆Young Guns年度設計新人獎, 是四位獲獎加拿大籍設計師之一; 2010年被韓國設計月刊Designnet評為當代三十六位最具重要性的年輕亞裔設計師之一; 同年被多倫多藝術雜誌Applied Arts Magazine收錄於Young Blood檔案內。

Isabel Seiffert & Johannes Müller-Naumann, Selfmade Magazine, Stuttgart, Germany, 2010

What dominates your design?

Functionality determines my directions and the form of my works. Many designers still don’t address the way people actually live. Some of my designs are created for the fluidity among all our everyday actions. My home town Hong Kong is best known for its high density and extremely luxury urban spaces. Multi-purpose living style are common here, the office is for working, and dining room for consuming food, but many people eat at the same desk where they work. The starting point of my projects is intended to discover hidden connecting points between the object, its users and the potential context in which its value is explored and defined. All this in favor of satisfying everyday needs and addressing the problems. Product design has the mass production as its primary purpose to distribute as many copies as possible to as many people as possible. The outcome should be functional and objective, if consumers are motivated to buy an object, it should be simply because they need the object in real life. For me, design is truly scientific, yet it captures the essence of science in an interactive way and brings out the sympathetic, emotional perceptions in people.

德國斯圖加特Selfmade設計雜誌, 2010年

什麼主宰著你的設計?

功能主導我的思考方向及作品形態, 直至今天仍然有很多設計師忽略了人類真實的居住方式。 我的某些構想是針對日常生活中的多變而產生, 我的出生地香港以它的高密度和昂貴的城市空間見稱, 多功能的生活方式在這裡非常普遍, 例如我們本來應該是在辦公室裡工作, 在飯廳裡進食, 但事實上現代的城市人卻經常選擇在同一張書桌上工作和用餐。 我的作品企圖尋找出物件, 使用者及事件背景三者之間的連接點, 從而進一步發展並給它定義新的價值, 這一切都是為了要更滿足我們的生活需求或把問題解決。 工業設計的初衷便是以大量生產為主要目的, 盡可能將產品供應給最多的人, 要做到這點, 作品效果應該是具功能性和客觀的, 若消費者希望購買一件產品, 那應該純粹是因為他們在現實生活中真正的需要它。 對我而言, 設計是絕對科學的, 然而它的科學具有互動性, 從而讓使用者產生共鳴的感覺。

Peter Giffen, Applied Arts Magazine, Toronto, Canada, 2010

Could you explain your chief strengths as a designer?

Observation is a crucial element in my design. We can’t create things based on no history in today’s modern world; my works are designed as a response the existing culture, people and environment, which allows me to create products that not only look good but are also meaningful. As a multicultural-educated designer, I epitomize the encounter between Eastern and Western visual culture at its most inspired. My design work is an ongoing search for the ideal balance between distilled forms of Eastern culture, beauty and tradtion, and the experimentalism of modern Western visual culture.

加拿大多倫多Applied Arts藝術雜誌, 2010年

作為一位設計師, 可否說明你獨特的地方?

觀察是我在設計過程中的一個關鍵元素, 在今天的現代世界裡我們不可能在沒有歷史的情況下創造新的東西; 我的設計是對現存的文化, 人和環境的一種反應, 這令它們不只有著美麗的外形, 而且是具有意義的。 作為一個曾在各地接受教育的設計師, 我的作品正表現著多元概念的融合, 意圖在簡練的亞洲美學及具實驗性的歐美文化之間尋找出最合理的平衡點。