As a journalist well-versed in covering fashion and lifestyle, you joined Dezeen as China Editor half a year ago. Could you tell us more about the move?
Dezeen is one of the world’s most visited and influential online magazines for architecture, interiors and design. It has always been my daily must-read source. I worked with Dezeen when I was a foreign correspondent in London, and I am honoured to be associated with Marcus Fairs, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Dezeen. At that time, as a foreign correspondent reporting on the latest developments in global design and lifestyle, Dezeen was always a very reliable source of information and inspiration. So when I knew about Dezeen's expansion plan into China, I was very eager to join this fascinating reporting team to share Dezeen’s high-quality content with Chinese readers; and at the same time, to bring more outstanding design works from China to the global audience.

How do you find covering design and architecture different from your previous beats?
In fact, I don't think this is a big change. I've been covering the creative industry since I entered journalism for more than 10 years. Speaking of media management, media outlets are categorised by fashion media, consumer media, lifestyle media, and architectural media, etc. But these sub-sectors are basically all in the creative industry.

I would say, though, it has become more obvious in recent years that cross-border, cross-industry cooperation has become the biggest driver for innovation in our society. As journalists who have been witnessing and recording the era, we cannot confine our innovative vision to particular "sectors". In this connection, Dezeen reports on the design industry with its own editorial judgment, to achieve "the democratisation of design", instead of doing it from an academic perspective.

In fact, almost everything around our daily life has something to do with design, ranging from urban planning and architecture to every-day furniture, the fashion we put on ourselves and smartphones... We cannot live without design!

Dezeen has been an English-language publication headquartered in London. But it made a bold move by opening a Chinese WeChat account in 2019. How did it come about? What is China’s position in the global architecture and design industry?
Dezeen rolled out the flagship project Dezeen Awards in 2018. During the process, we discovered many fast-growing Chinese projects, and the quality of the work far exceeded our expectations. Dezeen has also been very well received by our Chinese readers, giving confidence in entering China.

On the other hand, we have always believed that China has great potential in terms of its creative power, but it is rarely recognised by its global counterparts. We hope to dig out more excellent local designs and present them to the global audience. We don't want our coverage to be monopolised or dominated by large companies and PR spins. Instead, we hope to encourage and explore new design talents, especially students currently in design schools. The WeChat official account and its content platform gave us a very good headstart in this aspect. In the future, we will continue to promote ourselves on other content platforms and in other formats, such as graphics and videos.

Is Dezeen’s editorial focus any different in China?
We still have to follow the style guide created by Dezeen, which is to make sure everyone understands the context of our stories and feel involved in the discussion. This can be achieved through our down-to-earth language in our design coverage. However, apart from abandoning pedantic and academic narrations, we hope to insist on professional reporting and put an end to exaggerated headlines. Regarding our topic selection criteria, not only do we value a particular project’s aesthetics and creativity, but we also need to make sure whether it can bring benefits to our society and the environment as a whole. Good design should not come at the expense of sociality and sustainability.

This year marks the 15^th anniversary of Dezeen. To mark this milestone, we invited 15 renowned designers to share their ideas for future designs. We also launched the "Redesign the World" competition in collaboration with game developer Epic Games. I must say that in this year's annual Dezeen Awards, many Chinese design firms won accolades. For example, Neri&Hu was named "Architecture Studio of the Year",  becoming the first Chinese architectural firm to win this award.

Could you tell us more about Dezeen’s editorial coverage in China?
At present, our Chinese content is mainly divided into four major sections: architecture, interiors, design and characters. Architecture and interior design have always been the most popular sections. In addition to sharing high-quality overseas projects, this year, we strengthened our original Chinese content. The design section covers all other design categories except architecture and interior design, including furniture, fashion, industrial design, technology products, graphic design, and more. The people section includes interviews with designers and event-related content which leads people to Dezeen’s own forum for idea exchange and sharing. Last but not the least, we also have a dedicated section to present the Dezeen Awards, with a detailed introduction to the shortlisted projects.

Are you open to working with public relations professionals?
Of course, many of our projects have been done with the support of PRs. We welcome PRs from all industries if they can share good design projects with us. It doesn’t really matter what types of content they are pitching with, as we always believe we should work beyond the rigidity around defining media types. No matter which industry the client comes from, media coverage can go far and wide if it comes with a genuine design perspective and human interest angle. This is what Dezeen hopes to do as well.

What topics do you think will be trending in the design, architecture and interior area next year?
Metaverse, flexible work, and carbon neutrality.