Frustum Design - F. magazine / blog

Culture memory is the base of personal identity and has great influence to human behaviors.

Once up a time, one of the greatest Chinese poets, Su Shi had wrote :

The moon does wax, the moon dose wane.
And so men meet and say goodbye.
I only pray our life be long.
And our souls together heavenward fly.

This is the eastern moon, and it is about the feeling to relationship and the country.

Our imagination to the moon has influenced our societies and cultures since ancient times. The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important days for family unit. We share views, enjoy music, and celebrate all night until the sun raises. Everyone is equal before nature. This respect demonstrates the depth of our sensibilities to the universe, which is also the root of the Eastern philosophy.

This is eastern thinking. It lays the foundation for our self-awareness and attitude to the family and the country. We created a name and an object to represent our gratitude to nature and unknown force, such as “moon paper” which contains images of moon palace and rabbit, and the “paper lanterns” for the celebration and wishing the dead rest in peace.

All these objects and meaning come from the observation of our ancestors, and become common symbols in our culture and memory. It builds the connection between people, nature and the generations, and becomes a culture memory.

“Houston, TranquilityBase here. The Eagle has landed.”

This is the first message that human received from space. The Apollo 11 mission was a significant millstone in human history. It represented the fact that all imagination about the moon, since Ancient times, replaced by truly observation and touch. Or we could say that, this little step has led a new pathway to understand the space and universe. It also, influenced people’s mind and understand since then.

The moon landing memories are a strong mark on western culture. People became more confidence while demanded more space for self-expression. With the exploration of curiosity and imagination, we went into the “Space Age”. A lot of material (plastic, metal, PVA…) had been used in new areas, like fashion, furniture design, etc. The geometrical figure represented as part of the Futurism design language. We truly believe that there are no limits of human and human’s creativity.

The surface of the moon is actually dark. We can see the moonlight just because the sunlight is reflected on the parts of the moon surface where the sun shines, which influences the appearance of the Moon. The moon is in synchronous rotation as it orbits Earth, just like our culture memory always stands deep in our mind and influences our behaviors subconsciously. It is undoubtedly a unique and powerful expression to realize the beauty and power of this memory and turn it into our design language. The creation of design is more about finding the inner connection between environment and culture, and make people reconsider daily life which has been taken for granted.

This time, the FRUSTUM’s want to say “happy Mid-autumn Festival” by a design project about our culture and memory: to represent East/ West moon symbology with FRUSTUM design language. With “colorful paper lanterns”, this traditional material, we would show how cultural memory “influences” our designs, and how the design work represent everyone’s individual experience.

The design concept came from the structure of our studio. It combines our imagination about the moon with our life/work environment. The moon rabbits like all the Frustum design members, they stay with the moon as the moon orbits Earth.

The biggest rabbit stand in front of the moon, just like the Chinese legend story. The red rocket means the influence of western culture, but also, comes form the toy rocket in our studio.

We created this moon palace based on our life experience and observation to the world. The elements, such as material, object with environment, and our attitude towards life, cross together and constitute our own design expression. What’s more, it contains diverse elements while making the co-existence possible.

Everyone has a moon memory, and design lights its best side.

We want to say happy Mid-autumn Festival to share our wish and happiness through our design work and memory.