Here in Omuus our multidisciplinary team consist of specialist, who are super talents in their own field. For this post, we interviewed our CMF designer Minna Qiang, whose work and achievements are truly remarkable.

We cover her journey to Omuus, customers frequently asked questions and what excites her in the future.

Here you go!

Q: How would you describe your work at Omuus?

It is very exciting! Every day feels like a new adventure. Working as CMF designer in a technology design agency, we meet different clients from very different industries every day. My work as Omuus CMF designer is crossing different disciplines from design, branding and technology.

We create new color palets for product design, based on future trends and business insights. Also, we develop new look& feel and new material technologies working closely with industrial designers and material specialists. In order to provide the professional design service to our clients, we need to build tailored design strategy for every specific client brand identity and business model. This is super important as an expert consultancy work.

Q: Can you tell us about your journey to Omuus?

I started at Omuus in 2015 and my first year as CMF consultancy based in Huawei design office in Shenzhen. After the year I came back to Helsinki and continued my career at Omuus. Before my time in Omuus I worked for Nokia in Beijing and moved to Finland to work for Microsoft as a Principal Color & Material Designer.

My journey to becoming a CMF designer started when I did my Bachelor and Master degree in industrial design. To get my Master’s degree I studied in Finland Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. We had exchange program from Tsinghua art & design university for Nordic countries. That was the first time I got familiar with Nordic design. I just love the spirit of Scandinavian design. It is so peaceful and human centered, and I like the Nordic way of using materials: pure, material-led and sustainable.

Q: Please describe some highlight of your career?

This is a difficult one. In Beijing, I worked as a CMF manager for Nokia to manage entry phone CMF team innovation and delivered mass volume Nokia mobile phones to market. After moving to Finland, I have been the CMF concept lead of Lumia phone and Lead CMF of 2015 Windows10 flagship phones. By evolving Nokia Lumia CMD identity and portfolio we drove progressive material projects with Industrial design and other design disciplines.

One of the greatest highlights of my career was last year, when I worked for Huawei screen product unit. Huawei decided to enter PC market in 2017 with their brand new MateBook series. I was part of developing MateBook E, D and X. It was such a cool experience, to work closely together with talented professionals in Huawei design team. Our goal was to achieve Huawei MateBook series design identity along with Huawei holistic brand identity.

Q: Which are customers most frequently asked questions and how do you answer?

FQ: What is the latest CMF trend?

Trending now in general is design for sustainability. Materials are designed to be sustainable and appealing to all senses. Although trends vary across industries, but our job is not only to work with trend studies. Trend foresight is the compass to see where to go in the future. It produces meaningful information and inspiration for business decision making. We paint the picture of consumer and design trends, competitor benchmarking and interpreted those information into crucial insights for clients’ business. Based on upcoming trends, we help clients to build their own brand and lead the market.

FQ: Can you help us to create a new product design?

Yes, of course, that is our mission. Working closely with industrial designers and material specialists guarantees that every design we created is innovative and meaningful, but also doable in mass production.  In order to create a new product design, we need to really dive into client’s industry to understand their market, competition and technology. Identifying these key drivers is crucial for creating new designs.

Q: What excites you about the future of your field?

As CMF designers, we create the future. We set directions for new material technologies and take part in the creation process. Meeting experts from different industries means that we learn new things every day. What is see also as a future challenge or opportunity is on the material experience side, for example sensorial quality and emotion evoking. In the end, we design for the people.