Tong Huiming, Professor and Director of College of Design, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
Our friend and host in China, the honorable Tong. As one of the first generation of industrial designers in China, Prof. Tong has taught in the design school over 26 years. He’s also vice-chairman of Guangdong Industrial Design Association (GDIDA), Standing Board member of Chinese Industrial Design Association (CIDA), and member of Industrial design Council, Chinese Fine Arts Association (CFAA). In the past twenty years, Prof. Tong played a key role in promoting industrial design development in China, especially in Pearl River Delta (PRD). He is jury member of China Red Star Award (most important industrial design award in Beijing) from 2006, and Chairman of KAPAK Design Award in Guangzhou International Design Week from 2006.

Huiming began his career in 1977, working as a tableware designer at a porcelain company in Shandong, China. Nine years later, after receiving a design master degree from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and bachelor degree from Central Academy of Art & Design (Now Tsinghua University ), he became a young industrial design teacher at in the school. The time was just as Chinese design education was beginning and couldn’t get enough information and training materials, so Tong advanced the idea of learning from doing. He set up Southland Design Ltd in 1988 with a few young design teachers and businessmen. The studio was first product design force in south of China, offering service in new product innovation and design for local industry. Two years after, he left to build a new design studio, Thunderbird Product Design Center inside GAFA, guiding a team that became most powerful in PRD within four years. From 1996 to 2005, Tong’s own design studio, FORMSTUDIO, created more than hundred design projects for local companies, such as KELON (refrigerator ),KANGBAO (sterilizing cabinets), MIDEA (air condition) KANGYI (counterfeit-note-detectors and counters) and CIRCLE (tableware) assisted by his master students.