Ryan Cheah

I am a designer who thrives on communicating my ideas using stories, concepts and experience.

I come from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - a unique, multicultural country that brims with traditions, quirkiness and issues that served as inspirations to my designs. Recently graduated from Nottingham Trent University, UK, I am passionate particularly about spaces, objects and the living environment - embodied by my two degrees in Interior Architecture & Design, and a second one in Furniture & Product Design.

My personal design philosophy has changed throughout my design education, but I have always believe in design honesty, a topic I explored in my latest dissertation. My strength lies usually in my concept; I have always believed that a good design should communicate with the users, and it should have a story behind the design that connects emotionally with them. I am also a very hands-on person who prefers to design with sketches and sketch models; I possess meticulous workmanship and finds making highly detailed models enjoyable.

I have a one-year experience in the design education industry when I served as the module leader for furniture design at a local college. I find that experience immensely challenging and rewarding, and I envision a future career in the design education field.

I am highly organised, observant, attentive to details and can communicate in four languages, a skill that I am particularly proud of as it enabled me to experience the world better. Besides design I fiddled with lomography, typography and kept a keen eye on the English Premier League.

Designers/Studios/Architects that inspire me include BarberOsgerby, Naoto Fukasawa, Benjamin Hubert, Kenya Hara, the Bouroullec Brothers, Dieter Rams, Oki Sato (Nendo), Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava, Konstantin Grcic, the Industrial Facility and the Eames.