Khajornsak Nakpan

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Khajornsak Nakpan ("KN") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

KN : I graduated BFA. (Western Painting) from Poh-Chang Academy of Arts, Bangkok, Thailand. I have started to be a designer. Since I was 25 years old in 2000, it has been more than 20 years in progress.

DL: What motivates you to design in general, why did you become a designer?

KN : My family is small. They give me the freedom to do whatever I want which is the best tool I could be given. That and my own talent enables me to achieve awards at different levels since I was in primary school. It inspires me to pursue my passion for art and design.

DL: Did you choose to become a designer, or you were forced to become one?

KN : I choose to become a designer myself. Before attending a PhD, I worked as a senior fashion designer and merchandising in a big Company named “Saha Pathanapibul”. So, I have almost 20 years of experience. During that period, I gained a lot of valuable skills that weren’t included in the academic curriculum, such as solving and time management skills.

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

KN : One of my accomplishments during my Doctoral life was discovering new knowledge that contributed to the integration of Science and Aesthetics. I’ve been hard-working and have taken my subjects quite seriously. As I am graduated, I want to implement my knowledge to design and create pilot products and design cycles for circular fashion.

DL: What should young designers do to become a design legend like you?

KN : Doing a lot of research to explore the conceptual ideas, practice by using a suitable tool to present an aim, hardworking, including remembering mistakes and keep solving them are the vital disciplines of a Designer.

DL: What distinguishes between a good designer and a great designer?

KN : A good designer responds functionally to basic human needs, relying upon social trends. A great designer makes a difference, which beware of the holistic achievement, desiring to contribute to the multi integration of knowledge and construct the philosophical engagement with people and the design society.

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

KN : An outstanding design must be constructed from conceptual ideas enhanced with philosophical aesthetics and responds to practical use. The evaluation directs both physical and mental help.

DL: What is the value of good design? Why should everyone invest in good design?

KN : The value of good design could review the relationship between humans, metaphors, and nature can lead to a balanced psychomotor enabling us to preserve wisdom.

DL: What would you design and who would you design for if you had the time?

KN : The next design project attempts to create the philosophical aesthetics of ‘mould’. It aims to continue driving abstract materials to improve the innovative design and harmonious living and the idea that it grows from something dead. It can be used to demonstrate the life cycle – a circle of living, pain, survival, and disintegration.

DL: What is the dream project you haven’t yet had time to realize?

KN : The dream project is to increase the increasing Capacity of Innovative Synthesized Bio Melanin as Textile Substitute through Genius Pattern Design to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, the successful project will create minimal waste from pattern cutting.

DL: What is your secret recipe of success in design, what is your secret ingredient?

KN : Never stop being neglect, observing, learning, thinking, predicting and creating!

DL: Who are some other design masters and legends you get inspired from?

KN : Marcel Duchamp, is a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. In 1958 Duchamp said of creativity, "...The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.."

DL: What are your favorite designs by other designers, why do you like them?

KN : My favourite designer is Issey Miyake, a Japanese fashion designer. His innovation expresses experimenting with new methods of pleating that would allow both flexibility of movement for the wearer and ease of care and production. The garments are cut and sewn first, then sandwiched between layers of paper and fed into a heat press, where they are pleated. The fabric's memory holds the pleats, and when the garments are liberated from their paper cocoon, they are ready to wear.

DL: What is your greatest design, which aspects of that design makes you think it is great?

KN : I would refer to the great art, Fountain 1917, created by Marcel Duchamp; the idea was to question the very notion of Art and the adoration of art, which Duchamp found "unnecessary". As he mentioned, "...My idea was to choose an object that wouldn't attract me, either by its beauty or its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it, you see..". This anti-art theory ensures my conceptual ideas are developed in the design aspects.

DL: How could people improve themselves to be better designers, what did you do?

KN : Making an effort to achieve the essence of hardworking reveals wisdom and real potentiality.

DL: If you hadn’t become a designer, what would you have done?

KN : Architect.

DL: How do you define design, what is design for you?

KN : Respond to needs in the World, reaching a point of No-Return.

DL: Who helped you to reach these heights, who was your biggest supporter?

KN : The first is the master, Fusako Yamanashi and Associate Professor Dr. Supavee Sirinkraporn comes second. They are both the biggest supporters who reach me to the height.

DL: What helped you to become a great designer?

KN : While I cannot measure profound truths from the artistic movement, I intend to use my unique experience gained from my unspoken learning, gifts, and instinct to answer my questions when designing. These may help to become a great designer.

DL: What were the obstacles you faced before becoming a design master?

KN : The educational system emphasises the profound effect that changes my conceptual ideas into habitually seeking scientific evidence and features the uniqueness that impacts my new knowledge.

DL: How do you think designers should present their work?

KN : The knowledge of designers can compare to Blood Circulation. This means blood is necessary. People receive blood transfusions for many reasons, such as surgery, injury, disease and bleeding disorders. Several components in the blood carry oxygen and help remove waste products, including helping your body fight infections the same as new knowledge helping one's wisdom properly.

DL: What’s your next design project, what should we expect from you in future?

KN : The next project is the "Innovative Synthesized Textile from Pre-historic Soil to Design Ethnic Contemporary Costumes which Reflects Civilization and Respect Cultural Diversity in Pang Ma Pa District, Mae Hong Sorn Province". I expect to transform cultural and natural heritage into jewellery or body ornaments to enable contemporary civilisation to increase the income and value of products from the local resources.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

KN : Make the incredible solving of a terrifying problem and reform it into a creative design.

DL: What people expect from an esteemed designer such as yourself?

KN : Aesthetic qualities can create aesthetic experiences and uplift the mind. The mind is capable of analysing, controlling, and anticipating. It is inherent in the basic mechanics of things. While science supports the concept of happiness, it is only the physical environment but the aesthetic qualities of an aesthetic object which is an external reflection of the internal state of mind. As scientific knowledge advances, so too should knowledge of psychology. Therefore, people can perceive the use of its physical qualities from the design items to lead to abstract meaning and understand the truth of things.

DL: How does design help create a better society?

KN : Even though fast fashion creates a world so exciting and reaches speedily, the result of bio melanin fibre fashion design is used to testify to human relationships and nature. The aesthetics dimension performs its richness than a scale as value still lifts the human’s mind to a higher level.

DL: What are you currently working on that you are especially excited about?

KN : Working with Soil. Soil is a substance that is abundantly available in the world. It originates from rock and mineral chemical degradation. Soil also reflects the values of living mechanisms on earth. At the same time, soil matter can resemble skin colour. As soil can be synthesised to show various shades of colour, the skin itself is as much the same in pigmentation (melanin) and colouration of different skin tones just like soil. Skin tone defines race.

DL: Which design projects gave you the most satisfaction, why?

KN : As the success of expanding abstract outcomes of my Bio Melanin Fibre Fashion to a concrete level, this appears in the form of a cycle to a collection of garments which is made of the innovative synthesised melanin from the soil by compiling content relating to truth and cycle to be expressed in empirical appearance in the name of “Balance of Truth”.

DL: What would you like to see changed in design industry in the coming years?

KN : I would like to see the effectiveness of designing objects and attempts the design, also manufacture pilot products in support of sustainable and creative economic growth through zero-waste fashion.

DL: Where do you think the design field is headed next?

KN : Innovations and future technology are happening right now that are ripped straight from the ideas of multi-metaverse. Some of the very sharpest minds are out there creating the headed next that will completely change how we live our lives. It can feel like scientific progress is purposed.

DL: How long does it take you to finalize a design project?

KN : This project takes three years.

DL: When you have a new design project, where do you start?

KN : I started a new project in January 2022. Exploring the pre-historic soil in Pi Mann Cave, Pang Ma Pa District, Mae Hong Sorn Province, Thailand.

DL: What is your life motto as a designer?

KN : Being as Soil.

DL: Do you think design sets the trends or trends set the designs?

KN : Whether think design sets the trends or not. Both serve human needs.

DL: What is the role of technology when you design?

KN : Bio Melanin Fibre fashion applies biological technology as a scientific experiment process to discover a new material with remarkable properties. The biomaterial was synthesised from good bacteria found in soil.

DL: What kind of design software and equipment do you use in your work?

KN : Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and 3D design software.

DL: What is the role of the color, materials and ambient in design?

KN : Bio Melanin Fibre, the created material was thin, light, fairly smooth and had a line pattern which expanded and spread freely and naturally; it also had a cool and soft texture. These characteristics are similar to those of human skin. One of the characteristics of this material was its nude colour, which was created through a synthesis process using soil containing good bacteria, which was the same as melanin, a pigment in human cells.

DL: What do you wish people to ask about your design?

KN : I wish people to ask, "how did you design it".

DL: When you see a new great design or product what comes into your mind?

KN : A new great design enables me to observe the dynamics of imagination. It also implies astonishing and measureless.

DL: Who is your ideal design partner? Do you believe in co-design?

KN : My ideal design partner is "Kering", a global Luxury group, Kering manages the development of a series of renowned Houses in Fashion.

DL: Which people you interacted had the most influence on your design?

KN : A philosopher, thinker, academic or cream person is an intellectual who contributes to one or more branches of philosophy, such as aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, metaphysics, social theory, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy.

DL: Which books you read had the most effect on your design?

KN : An amplituhedron was affected by the concepts. This is a mathematically calculated geometric shape introduced by Nima Arkani-Hamed and Jaroslav Trnka, an innovation in 2013. The shape explains the relationships between particles, which are the smallest units of a living system. It allows us to calculate relationships, which are the basis of the quantum philosophy, more easily.

DL: How did you develop your skills as a master designer?

KN : Spending time in my design life practice in order to specialise in generating knowledge of creative design, theory of colour, and computer graphics. As the result, combining my diverse abilities and skills renders uniqueness to my own work.

DL: Irrelative of time and space, who you would want to meet, talk and discuss with?

KN : Vladimir Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the president of Russia.

DL: How do you feel about all the awards and recognition you had, is it hard to be famous?

KN : I feel so impressed and thankful for the judging of the jury. From the beginning until now, I feel like being at a famous point is less complicated than being the inventive material accepted.

DL: What is your favorite color, place, food, season, thing and brand?

KN : My favourite colour is matte grey; the Place is Mount Everest, Thai food is the best, as well as being fond of Spring and having an intense feeling with Ford Mustang.

DL: Please tell us a little memoir, a funny thing you had experienced as a designer?

KN : A fantastic intellectual experience was attending the Milan Fashion Week in 2012.

DL: What makes your day great as a designer, how do you motivate yourself?

KN : Expressing an aesthetic way of living requires studying relationships between human and tacit knowledge, from observations, emotions, experiences, intuition, insights, and internal information to the explicit philosophy; all is always my motivation.

DL: When you were a little child, was it obvious that you would become a great designer?

KN : My family is small. They give me the freedom to do whatever I want which is the best tool I could be given. That and my own talent enables me to achieve awards at different levels since I was in primary school. It inspires me to pursue my passion for art and become a great designer.

DL: What do you think about future; what do you see will happen in thousand years from now?

KN : Technology is rapidly improving, offering new innovations and revolutionary projects every year. A ton of the very sharpest brains are out there creating the next volumes of future technology that will completely change how we live our lives. The Zero-aesthetics Era may establish.

DL: Please tell us anything you wish your fans to know about you, your design and anything else?

KN : Whether it is traditional or contemporary, the true value of an object is a magical connection. Time brings new things and takes lives away. Nonetheless, there is always a replacement. It is similar to, at one point in time, mass production answering the need of people at the time. There is a time when people long for a delicate and sophisticated way of living. The value just presents itself in a different form.