People / FormHuman:
FormHuman: (Zhehao Li, Huaijun Yang, Xiangzhi Zhao) is a collective started during my intern years before with three friends, so-called designers, with an academic background in product design (one later did jewellery and metal design for the master), but apparently we are longing for and practising a broad range of design from graphic, creative direction, curation, interior, etc. Sometimes we named ourselves vibe designers. The founding of the collective is trying to create a platform and anchorpoint for us to work with random side projects in our minds and consultancy projects through connections.
Sino
Back in 2024, the Sino opener began as a side project during our work placements. It is a reflection of the friction that grassroots designers face when finding a voice, and reaching real-world production in the early stages of practice – worsened by limited access to knowledge on the factory floor and the cost of engineering and manufacturing.
That friction sent us to the Yangtze Delta, China, spending our annual leave visiting factories and speaking with locals. Working with objects never before exported, we wondered whether design-thinking rooted in London could take root in China’s manufacturing landscape from the ground up – drawing on fundamental knowledge and resources to produce across borders.
What emerged was a design without dedicated moulds or tooling; the manufacturer could iterate and scale alone. Mass manufacturing is carried out with a family-run factory in Dongguan specialising in wire-bent hooks, while the heat shrink tubing comes from a source factory that replaces its original engineering notes with customised details.