Robert Peters Does Taipei: 早安 Taiwan!

As part of XCD’s series in covering Design in Taiwan, we go to Robert L. Peters, past President of Icograda (2001-2003). 謝謝, Rob!

Read more about his observations on “beautiful, rich, smart, talented and hard-working” Taiwan, its history, design culture and current concerns: download this pdf.

An excerpt of the conversations Rob had with his Taiwanese colleagues:

According to Yao-Sheng Tseng, Taiwanese creators can now draw from a deeper cultural inkwell than their Mainland counterparts. As Tseng explains, “… classical Chinese culture has been preserved and cultivated in Taiwan, and has taken root in this island—it prevails in everyday life, and presents itself in the form of the peoples’ sense of propriety.”

The significance of this point, combined with the multicultural experience and proven ability of Taiwanese to fuse Eastern and Western influences, should not be underestimated—particularly in light of the advantageous geographic, political and economic position Taiwan currently enjoys. As Leslie Chan explains, “…China has a high dependency on Taiwanese enterprises, and the us needs our manufacturing, integration and creative services.”

This feature appears in the November/December 2011 issue of Communication Arts magazine.

Robert L. Peters, FGDC is a founding principal of CIRCLE, an international design consultancy based in Winnipeg, Canada. He is a former president of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda), and author of the book Worldwide Identity (Rockport Publishers). Peters has previously contributed feature articles in Communication Arts magazine on design in Russia, Japan, Brazil, China, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, and Portugal. Rob served on the advisory team to the 2011 IDA conference organizers in Taiwan, and presented a keynote lecture in the ‘Economic Development’ stream.