Design Trust Legacy Award 2021 Honouree Dr. Henry Steiner, and Ms. Margaret Steiner shared on the design process and sketches of the Hong Kong Fishing Vessels Stamps designed in 1986, unfolding his research into the fishing industry and ecology of Hong Kong presented through graphic design. Henry said: “Fishing is an integral part of Hong Kong's earlier identity. Postage stamp design is a powerful medium for communication and city identity. From a design perspective, there was a lot of research that went into this project.”
Design Trust Arts Prize 2025 Honouree Gary Chang shared his life and career with sketches: “Sketching is almost everything to me. I graduated in 1987, a time I remember was the transition from drafting to computers, so anyone who can do computer drawing then you naturally got the distinction. I belonged to that era, but I spent almost my whole life and career doing all my own sketches. The beauty of sketching is that it can go, with efficiency, where you free from your mind with instant sketches completed within 3 minutes.”
Design Trust grantee, well-known Hong Kong architect and artist Raymond Fung shared the two drawings of Hong Kong decades ago: “ This is my first work that got printed in a newspaper in 1962 when the City Hall was just open when I was ten. This is my first drawing of Hong Kong. Now this is another rendering done in 1988, the year before the Bank of China tower was finished.” Raymond also presented his hand-drawn rendering of architectural projects at different scales from Hong Kong, to Xiamen and across the region to show his particular ways of representing the built environment and urban changes, and how sketches for him present Hong Kong’s spirit of transformation.
Working with Design Trust research team to create the special illustration map of Stanley District for Design Trust Futures Festival 2025, Connie Maoshan expanded on her sketch and illustration drawing journey to observe, document and reflect on the transformation of Hong Kong’s urban landscape: “I draw everyday and it's something so indispensable in my life. I collect things I see on the street and am a little bit obsessive with collecting and I just draw everything when I travel. One of the reasons I started drawing maps like these, is because I feel Hong Kong changes so quickly and there are so many districts that people don't even realize, that they exist even if they've grown up here. When I worked at a conservation office previously, we restored old buildings in Hong Kong, and we looked at the history of the building and the whole district, to pick up any primary source that we can find that led me to draw maps of Hong Kong”
Design Trust grantee and designer mentee Elaine Yan Ling Ng also shared her creative process through “sketching” with textile materials to explore different design possibilities, followed by Design Trust designer mentees Julie Progin & Jesse Mc Lin who shared their studio archive of material prototype works as a method to inspire future creation.
Responding to the larger curatorial theme “The Art of Transformation” of Design Trust Futures Festival 2025 at Murray House, Lead Curator Marisa Yiu moderated the discussion in conversation with special respondents Rocco Yim and Puay Peng Ho. Reflecting on the participants’ sharing, Rocco Yim said: “I’m very happy that most, if not all of the images I have seen today are not computer generated. I saw actual hand-drawn sketches, hand-drawn samples and hand-drawn pieces. I started to know these people and read their way and souls. If you look at Le Corbusier, the drawings and the sketches represent two different personalities. If you look at his hand-drawn sketches for the cities, the towers, the highways, the master urban planning, you see boring, intimidating and almost brutal vision of what future cities are. But then you look at his drawings, color books, painting sketches, you see beautiful shapes and spaces. There is a duality being revealed from the sketches and drawings.” Rocco also applauded the duality of Island Works from digital scanning to freehand sketches to understand the island culture of Hong Kong.
