At the World Front Design Award 2025 Autumn Season, Yen Chang Chen from Yuan Ze University was awarded the Grand Prize – Best Design of the Season / Best Digital Communication for The “Kao-Bei” Cup, a social creative design project that transforms everyday Taiwanese language into an accessible, participatory cultural object.
Rooted in vernacular speech, museum communication, and daily ritual, The Award-Winning “Kao-Bei” Cup demonstrates how design can operate not only as form-making, but as a bridge between language, culture, and social interaction.
By embedding humor, linguistic coincidence, and cultural observation into a familiar everyday object, the project reimagines how museums can enter daily conversations—naturally, sustainably, and with a distinctly local voice.
Interview with Yen
Q: What initially inspired this project?
Yen:This project was inspired by observations of everyday Taiwanese life and language. The phrase “靠杯” is commonly used to express emotions such as frustration, surprise, or humor, reflecting how people communicate casually and authentically in daily life. I wanted to transform this intangible, spoken expression into a tangible object—allowing language, culture, and design to intersect in a playful yet meaningful way.
The idea also emerged from reflecting on museum marketing. Unlike convenience stores, which people visit daily, museums are often places people remember visiting months or even years later. I began to ask how museums could become part of everyday conversations rather than distant memories.
In Taiwanese, the word “bei” in “靠杯” sounds the same as the word for “cup.” I took advantage of this clever linguistic coincidence. Mandarin characters themselves are fascinating—many possess pictographic and visual qualities. With the rise of online communication platforms such as LINE, expressive utterances have become part of modern language and grammar. Interestingly, many of these expressions—whether conveying praise, surprise, anger, or confusion—share the “mouth” (口) radical.
In everyday speech, we often say, “using the mouth, we naturally reach for a cup.” This intuitive connection led me to use a cup as the design medium. By situating the object in familiar daily scenes—office workers chatting and pouring tea in a pantry—conversations about museum visits and cultural experiences can naturally emerge. Through this everyday object, museum engagement becomes part of daily social interaction, helping museums in Taiwan reach broader audiences through social media and word-of-mouth in an approachable and sustainable way.
Q: What was the most exciting or most challenging aspect of bringing this work to life?
Yen:The most exciting part was translating a colloquial expression into a physical product that people could instantly relate to. The biggest challenge was balancing humor with design refinement—ensuring that the object felt fun and approachable while still maintaining aesthetic quality and conceptual clarity, rather than becoming merely a novelty item.
Q: During your design process, is there anyone you would like to acknowledge for their support or inspiration?
Yen:I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Director Lai of the New Taipei City Tea Museum. His appreciation of this creative concept played a crucial role in bringing it to life. His openness allowed this social media–driven design idea to be adopted by a public cultural institution in Taiwan, transforming a playful experiment into a real-world communication practice.
I am also thankful to Founder Li-Ting Yi of Yeeee Pottery for providing invaluable technical support during production.
Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the Bauhaus movement of 1919 as a source of inspiration. Bauhaus encouraged designers to integrate art with craftsmanship and to boldly explore diverse media and materials.
Q: Could you share a bit about your experience taking part in the World Front Design Award?
Yen:Participating in the World Front Design Award was a valuable experience that allowed this locally rooted project to be viewed from an international perspective. It was meaningful to see how a design grounded in Taiwanese vernacular culture could resonate across different cultural contexts.
I was truly honored to receive the Grand Prize for this quarter. All of the other entries were outstanding and inspiring. I can only say that I was very fortunate, and I sincerely thank the judges for appreciating this low-budget yet concept-driven creative project.
