Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tia Liu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

As a design student, learning the craft could mean a lot of different things, ranging from software skills, to formulating ideas and communication with audiences. I think sharing opinions with my professors and classmates really helped me to speed up my learning process and evaluate things critically from multiple perspectives. In addition, I think writing down reflection at each stages of different projects also helped me to better understand myself and recognizing my strengths and weaknesses. I could always revisit and refine my solutions to make better adjustment. Whenever I feel lost, sharing and reflecting really provided me new pathways and directions to resolve my problems.

Tia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Shapes, patterns, and colors were the three things I was always fond of. Back in middle school, I was fascinated with drawing, painting, and making installations to express my creativity, so I decided to pursue advanced studies related to this field. Currently, I am a design major student focusing on strengthening the communication between people through creativity. The transition from the the fine arts courses to design courses was really challenging for me in the beginning, but now I realized the importance of distinguishing between the two areas, and think differently while working on design projects. One of my professors told me that instead of “creating problems” like fine artists, designers have to solve problem and convey message clearly. The most important thing I learned as a designer is to work with a system, a defined set of requirements and constraints, and be keep everything consistent throughout a project. The design process is often more structured, involving research, problem-solving, prototyping, and testing. I really enjoyed the logic and the preciseness behind design and wish that I could keep exploring and try out new things in this field.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There isn’t a particular goal or mission driving my creative journey, but what motivates me is always being able to take risks in each project. Instead of setting a particular goal or mission, I look forward to growth and change in my projects as a design student. Being able to go out of my comfort zone would always keep me motivated and becoming more experienced and mature. Although I encountered a lot of challenges and problems that could not be resolved, I always told myself not to be afraid of failure, because learning from the mistakes would help me to do better in the future.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is that it helped me to better understand the world and the people around me. After becoming a designer, I realized that observation is the most important step to initiate a project. Design can be seen everywhere in our life, from museum, posters, to wayfinding and signage systems and social media. To gain inspiration and understand the problem you are trying to solve, I always start with research and observing things that happened around me. Through that process, I could discover meaningful things that we usually neglect, and understand what people truly need.