During our interview with Professor Lin about his splendid design, he said “I have been working on CIS and brand images for many years. Everything starts from a model with blueprints, puzzles, maps, territories, and a star atlas. We need to build up a recognizable yet elegant brand image, which requires a systematic way of doing it.” Lin’s design model might be somewhat difficult for elementary students to understand, but parents reminded us what really matters for joining this Cyberfair competition is the spirit for loving something, learning something, and concerning about something.

Inspirations after the interview

　　After our interview with Lin, we went on to interview with some other professionals in this field. We gradually realized the importance of corporate identity for a company. A corporate identity represents the image of a brand or a company in front of the public. This usually includes a company’s logo (including standardized fonts and shapes) and a package of follow-up design. A CIS usually provides specific guidelines for supervising the usage of CI design, such as a series of standard colors, unified fonts, and page layouts. These are key elements to establish the unity and coherence of a CI.

　　We then realized that a lot of companies already have their own sets of corporate identity system. These CIS are applied through all products and relevant aspects. Let’s take our favorite fast food restaurant, McDonald’s as an example. The well-known “M” logo and the red & yellow combination are seen through all packages and commercials of McDonald’s. This is one of the reasons why companies invest a large amount of money and time in building a systematic corporate identity. They seek a unique yet refreshing identity for customers to like, to purchase, or to possess their products.

　　When we are interpreting Lin’s CIS model, we felt that stars in the atlas symbolizes thoughts of individuals. From the star-like thoughts, Lin feels the goals and directions, and then he puts them together onto maps. By stitching maps together, Lin creates a bigger map of the CI blueprint and pattern. What a profound and intriguing model!

　　Professor Lin is born and raised in Taiwan, the homeland he has the strongest feeling with. In his art work My Taiwan: See through the soul of our homeland he combines two different aspects of his concept. One is looking at Taiwan in its natural beauty, and the other its spiritual beauty. In the interview, he touched us by saying that “Taiwan is simply gorgeous. I’m not a sectionalist, but I insist in designing based on the local traditional and folk culture first, and then integrating the essence from other cultures. In this way, we will see a unique pattern of design.”

　　From the mass media we know that because of the rapid economic growth in mainland China, designs with Chinese culture and Chinese characters have been valued by the world. Professor Lin is deeply confident in Taiwan’s designing industry, because Taiwan have well preserved and applied Chinese culture for all these years. Taiwan has a better skill and experience in modernizing traditional culture. Lin believes that once we refine our education and expand Taiwanese students’ international visions, Taiwan has the potential to become the base of Chinese design and creativity business and the hub of worldwide cultural creative industry.

　　Professor Lin makes design his lifetime vocation. A man’s ‘mind’ and ‘attitude’ decide his depth and vision. The bigger your mind, the wider your world. The sky is the limit. With so many things that he has done, Lin still remains humble. He works his best to make things better for the design industry in Taiwan. Perhaps it paid off a little so far, yet he looks forward to see outstanding designers and students with great potential to keep up their dreams and make them come true. Someday, they could be the people who make Taiwan the world spotlight of the design industry.

　　His words deeply inspired us. We should get to know our own traditional and ethnical culture in more depth. We should appreciate what we have in Taiwan, and discover them with an open mind. Then we should travel more and explore all sorts of knowledge to feel the world. One day, we will integrate local and international cultures to make Taiwan irreplaceable. But right now, our challenge has just begun!