British commercial designer Michael Young is no stranger to China, having been here since the early 2000s. Although he graduated from Kingston University in 1992 and worked with designer Tom Dixon in London early in his career, he curiously settled in Hong Kong, a now established art capital of the world.
Designing a wide diversity of items such as hearing aids, glassware, watches, bicycles, furniture, lighting and handbags (and having won many awards in doing so), Young combines design with the technical functions of the local industry and works directly with Chinese. brands and industrialists. Throughout his career, he has worked with a list of esteemed clients such as Coca-Cola, Bacardi, Cappellini, Cathay Pacific, Giant Bicycles, Georg Jensen, Trussardi and Steelcase. He has also been the artistic director of one hundred percent Design Shanghai for 3 consecutive years, and his works have been exhibited at the Pompidou Museum and the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Design Museum in London and, at most recently, the M Museum in Hong Kong.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Young established a studio in Shenzhen, a testament to his confidence in the ability and generation of the Greater Bay Area. of Young’s own beer brand, as well as acting as an apartment to encourage artistic exchange and verbal exchange for young people founded in Shenzhen. A long-time collaborator of KEF, one of Britain’s most productive HI-fi suppliers, owned by a Chinese family. He has also worked with Gallery All, a gallery founded in Shanghai and Los Angeles, on a wide variety of design items ranging from polished stainless metal furniture with white tooth surfaces to beautiful Chinese dynasty-inspired vases made of aluminum foam.
However, one of his proudest achievements to date is being able to lead the design team for Moke International, a cult and historic car logo destined for a life on the beach. Produced in the UK, Australia and Portugal throughout its 50-year history, Michael Young’s new Moke has been optimized for today’s generation and handling. For the past twenty years, searching for a Moke has been incredibly difficult as this vintage cruiser cell phone went out of production in 1993. Even portions were hard to come by, and those handsome machines were locked up in garages and converted to spare portions. collection. “As a Moke enthusiast, when the email came asking if I was interested in talking about the project, it felt like a call of duty for me. I was recently commissioned to rebuild a Moke in Australia from old parts in 2012 and was fully aware of what needed to be done. This car is from the 1960s, an era in many spaces of creativity. Yet it has been more than 20 years since the last Moke rolled off the assembly line in Portugal, and the global replaced dramatically “We couldn’t just reflect the original style because times changed, and music and fashion replaced accordingly. Therefore, the main needs of the car also required adjustments: upgrades, better handling, braking, suspension, etc. says Young. -Engineering more than 160 new portions, the Moke is back, and it’s better than ever.
Although Covid-19 has put a pause on Young’s plans to open his studio in Shenzhen, he has no plans to slow down. Young will soon launch a new optical eyeglass logo with partners in Hong Kong and launch its own namesake family product logo through this year’s final, all made in China for the local market. In addition, it also runs with M2O, a new logo that supports reusable sustainable products (it has already designed a water bottle for them), as well as a design year for Arrival, a revolutionary British manufacturer of electric vehicles. Finally, design enthusiasts will be very pleased to know that Young is also publishing a new e-book with Swede Gustav Kjellin about 30 years of his work.