The China Trip (Part 2)

 

Recently, I took a trip to the wonderful land of China. It was one of Otis College of Art and Design's first trips to the country.

Our group from Otis was nearly 100% female, with the exception of two of our group leaders. As I mentioned before, the trip was part of a class/workshop associated with Hape, and it is part of Otis's Integrated Learning Program (IL). I suppose the whole point of IL is to get people from different departments and majors to work together on a project that is outside of one’s comfort zone. Our group was mostly made up of Toy Design majors, a few Product Design majors, one (or was it two?) Digital Media student(s), and one Fine Arts major. To add to the Otis team we met up with a few students from China Academy of the Arts (an amazing academy). Our "mission" for the workshop was to design a toy for Hape's Bamboo line.

That being said, the first morning in China we got a tour of Hape's factory. It was impressive; I was expecting the Time Magazine version of things to be honest. The talk of poor working conditions, underpaid near slave labor workers, and cutting corners to save a buck, NONE of that here. Granted, this sort of stuff does exist sadly, but it was nice to see a company that sets their own standards high and strives to push it higher. It was also nice to see firsthand the means of production with children's toys. On one hand it helps to see how things are done when designing a product. It becomes easier when you know what is possible to do in the production process.

At the end of the tour we had a Product Safety demonstration, which is basically a lecture in toy safety. (Something Drew went over before we left.) One of the things that makes designing and selling toys particularly challenging is passing the safety standards.

At the end of this long day we were driven to dinner at a theme-park-like restaurant to meet interns, families and from the company (this included previous workshop "veterans" from the Bauhaus). The entrance had a gigantic Buddha statue and was designed to look like a forest. There were large rooms for dinner parties, ours was an outdoor theme, others are of different sizes and some are enclosed. It was nice that they had a "vegetarian" table, so I did not have to guess what I was eating. So that was that, now on with the "documentations"... :) . Next post is about the "Bamboo Ocean".

Our breakfast cards for Home Inn. Everyday one of the employees knocks at our door and drops these off. They are basically our lunch tickets.

Home Inn map. We were advice to take one in case we got lost, to just show this to a taxi driver. It was a good idea.

This lovely lady (hotel employee) saw me sketching her and asked if she may keep it. After I said okay she ripped it out of my book. She seemed really happy about it.

Mostly spent time drawing people at breakfast. 

Introduction and welcome meeting with CEO of Hape

Dinner at that restaurant