Damian Holmes

Well, I decided to relaunch chinalandscapearchitect.com as two separate blogs – chinese version and an english version. They will cover the same topics and posts with the text translated into Simplified Chinese from English and will be focused on Landscape Architecture. I have done this for two reasons

1.   The chinalandscapearchitect.com (chinese version) (english version)  blog could be more detailed about landscape architecture and China. I want to use chinalandscapearchitect.com as a tool to educate Chinese and English speaking people about Landscape Architecture. The basics and the detailed areas of landscape architecture from design to site management. Often Landscape Architecture blogs are too focused on one specific location or area (eg design, technical, plants,) without offering definitions or ideas that stimulate people to further explore more areas of landscape architecture. Landscape Architecture is my passion and has been seen the age of 10 and I feel that I need to share my knowledge with people so they can further understand Landscape Architecture and what landscape architects do.

2. I can have the freedom on my personal blog (damianholmes.com) to explore topics that relate to everything in  World from business to everyday things. I felt pressure that my personal blog has my name on it and I would have to be solely focused on Landscape and my professional career to promote my business SUSTAIN.DS.

My News Years Eve 2005 – Sydney Opera House Steps

This time of year is often when people in the west reflect on the past year and set resolutions. However living in China most people don’t reflect until Chinese New Year which is February 14 – Year of the Tiger. So, as I am living in China, I have two times a year (New Years Eve & Chinese New Year) when I reflect on the past year and what I want to achieve in the next year.

At New Years I often set  goals but this year I am taking a different approach similar to that used by Chris Brogan’s 3 words but I am going to use 5 words. After listing the 5 words (the what I want to achieve) I have then listed the why, how, when for the words. The when doesn’t have to be in 2010. So the list is what, why, how and when. I hope this approach will give me more focus, and less distraction. So how is this different from resolutions? resolutions are goals but often with no process of how they will be achieved.

So how do I reflect at Chinese New Year – its a family time in China and often it is a good time to reflect on family and then review what I have done in that 5-7 weeks (chinese new year changes based on lunar cycle) and what I need to do more or less of to achieve the goals.

2010 will be interesting – developing and growing my design studio – SUSTAIN.DS, changes to my websites, travel (china & abroad) and personal life changes. Overall, I have decided that 2010 is going to be doing less reading, less reflecting and far more doing!!

What are your goals, resolutions for 2010? what didn’t you do last year that you can do in 2010?

Email me damian@damianholmes.com

Chinese New Year 2009 – City of God Temple Shanghai

Last Thursday, I attended the GIGA Print presentation given by Mario Van der Meulen of SGTH Designs. It was an interesting presentation about the Print industry and how as graphic and print designers can be more effective in design. Some of the talk was doom and gloom about the environment but it focused more on being a designer and your attitude to and the process you use. The talk also provided examples and solutions.

I liked the presentation and I got similar ideas from this talk as the Su Yunsheng presentation. The basic idea – that its about process not the application. Mario was talking about how through following a more responsive and interactive process of design you can be more effective and thus more environmentally friendly.

By starting with the client at point A and then asking questions and then coming up with a design rather than standard practice of client asks for X you give them X with no questions asked. X may not have been what they really wanted and maybe you could have given them something different and saved money & stopped negative impact on the environment. I have experienced the client asks for X constantly in China and in the west. Clients often don’t know exactly what they want or the range of options that are available, how could they its not their business. This is the reason they hire you you are to give them concepts and ideas as you are an expert in whatever field you specialise in.

Mario gave an example of a client who wanted 100,000 mail-order catalogues because they worked on the premise of 3% return. The address list they were using was to general. Mario suggested the client may wish to get a focused address list based on a survey of households. At the end of the day based on the survey and address list they got back they only needed 30,000 catalogues thus saving 70,000 from landfill. Mario is a great presenter and gave some good insights into his industry and examples that were practical and easy to understand for non-print designers.

I think we all need to more proactive in asking clients questions about exactly is it they want to achieve then coming up with a solution. If they ask you to do something that you aren’t an expert in then ask someone who is and collaborate. Collaboration is also key to finding solutions. Collaborating with printers, designers, manufacturers etc is the only way we all learn and make design more effective.

So the takeaway? – As a designer or expert you can be more effective if you think more about the process of the idea and not just pure application of an idea.

GIGA is a great organisation that has dual-language(English/Chinese) website and a great green database of products

There lectures have finished for the year and will be back after CNY in February look at their website and also sign up for the newsletter to know more.