Yixuan Zhang

A Narrative designer / Social observe / Industrial designer

I walk between logic and imagination, I am good at deconstructing problems with exaggerated design techniques and metaphorical narratives, which I think is not a kind of escape from reality, but my way of interpreting reality.

Project 1: Re-循
This project aims to establish a healthier dietary framework for users and help them cultivate a truly sustainable lifestyle. At the same time, a sustainable food distribution system is established to centrally distribute food. This system minimizes waste and combines sustainable storage solutions. The existing refrigerators are transformed based on the principle that clay and water absorb heat during evaporation to store food in new ways.

Project 2: Wingchun soothe
The project uses massage technology as an entry point to redefine the public perception of massage therapists through the design of interactive deformable installations, challenging social stereotypes about the profession.
Inspired by Wing Chun, the project presents a “Kung Fu Massage Therapist” through an installation that simulates their virtuosity in visual and physical experience, comparing massage to a “kung fu” that focuses on rhythm, strength, and precision. In this way, the audience is re-exposed to the skill and professionalism required by the profession, thereby rethinking the social value of massage therapists.

Project 3: The cult of entertainment
Through narrative devices, this project simulates the process of serious content being absorbed, extracted, and finally transformed into entertainment symbols, to symbolize the absurd reality of news sacrificing for entertainment.
This metaphorical expression leads the audience to think: How did we become believers in entertainment? In all the entertainment, are we losing sight of the real issues that deserve attention?

Project 4: “We can’t give birth to elephants, so let’s focus on producing the good eggs. “This is what my father said to me in a conversation. Based on field research, the project takes an in-depth look at my father’s small machine tool manufacturing company, describing the factory’s oscillations between expansion and introspection. Is it to blindly pursue the “elephant” defined by external standards, or to focus on self-growth and refinement?
This project takes “egg” and “elephant” as the core symbols and launches a deep thinking about “eggs or elephant”. The story of the factory is a metaphor, and it also reflects the choice of individual growth.