Chinese Dreamers EP02｜Designing the Future

魔都英语新闻丨ShanghaiLive

王受之：设计创造未来

Designing the Future

The freshmen in this classroom are the first group of students majoring in a newly-launched professional discipline at Shanghai Tech University called entertainment design - how you put together a film, a theme park, a game. The veteran lecturer helping them with their sketch lines now is the one who proposed the creation of this new university major -- Professor Wang Shouzhi.

在这间教室里上课的是上海科技大学新增的娱乐设计专业的首批新生。今天的这门课程涵盖了电影、主题公园、游戏设计等内容。正在指导这些学生线稿设计的是王受之教授，也是这个新专业的开创者。

Born into a family of artists, Professor Wang started his research on design theory in 1982, and became quite a big name in the field. "History of Modern World Archituecture," "History of World Graphic Design," many of his works are the main reference textbooks for design courses in China's universities. He began teaching in the US in the late 1980s, and that's when he began thinking about putting together the new major - Entertainment Design.

王受之教授出生艺术世家。自1982年起，他开始研究设计理论，逐渐在这个领域声名鹊起。他的很多著作都被国内大学作为设计专业的教学参考用书，比如《世界现代建筑史》《世界平面设计史》等。1980年代后期，王受之开始在美国授课，也是在那时他有了开创“娱乐设计”这门新专业的想法。

Prof. Wang Shouzhi, Vice Dean, School of Creativity & Art, Shanghai Tech University

王受之 上海科技大学创意与艺术学院副院长、教授

At that time I was a full-time faculty member of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. How to create a story, a visualized story, I think that would be a challenge. Because people studying in the film they didn't know about probdesign, or people in illustration they knew how to develop a concept of art but without any idea about the film process, and nobody had experience of theme park like theDisney. So I suggested the school that maybe we should opened a new class called the introduction to entertainment design.

当时我在帕萨迪纳艺术中心设计学院做全职讲师。那时的我觉得，如何创造一个故事、一个可视化的故事，是一种挑战。因为学电影的人不懂概念设计，而学插画的人知道如何去呈现艺术概念但对电影制作过程又一无所知，更没有人有做像设计迪士尼那样的主题公园的经验。所以我就向学校建议开设一个新的专业课程，叫做娱乐设计导论。

After teaching in the US for more than 20 years, Wang decided to bring his experience back home. In 2011, he started traveling around China giving lectures about entertainment design. His aim was to cultivate multi-disciplinary professionals who could bring their skills to different fields all in need of help with design concepts.

在美国教了20多年书后，王教授决定把他的经验带回国内。2011年，他开始在中国各地做娱乐设计方面的讲座。他的目标是培养多学科的专业人才，希望他们可以在设计理念的帮助下，把自己的技能应用到不同的领域。

Prof. Wang Shouzhi, Vice Dean, School of Creativity & Art, Shanghai Tech University

王受之上 海科技大学创意与艺术学院副院长、教授

China at that time was facing same situation. We have film school, theatre school, dancing shool, but we don't have entertainment school. So people they have to change their original occupation. Like artist from the film school, but finally he became a director. Everybody has to have a transformation of themsevles, so why don't we train people like that way?

那个时候中国其实面临（和美国）相同的问题。我们有电影学校，戏剧学校，舞蹈学校，但却没有娱乐学校。很多人不得不对他们原来的职业进行调整。比如说，一个原本是电影学院的表演艺术家，最终却变成了一位导演。如果每个人都不得不转变他们自己（的职业角色），那为什么不一开始就按转变后的道路去培养他们呢？

And that's what brought him to Shanghai three years ago.

也正因如此，王教授在三年前来到了上海。

Prof. Wang Shouzhi, Vice Dean, School of Creativity & Art, Shanghai Tech University

王受之 上海科技大学创意与艺术学院副院长、教授

Art and design in most of schools they put them together they say art and design. But in professional occupation, art and design are two things. Art is for artists themselves,anddesign is for users. I hope that in China we can create a new major that people, from day one to their graduation, they can have a very clear concept that my work is going to be seen, be used by majority of people not themselves. They are pieces that used by millions or billions of people in this nation.

大多数学校都是把艺术和设计归到一个专业的。但从职业角度来看，艺术和设计是完全两个东西。艺术是做给艺术家自己看的，而设计是做给用户的。我希望在中国我们可以创造一个全新的专业，这个专业的学生从入学到毕业，都可以有一个清晰的概念，那就是自己的作品不是只给他们自己，而是给大多数人看和用的。他们的作品是给成千上万的受众使用的。

At that time, the Shanghai Tech University was planning to create a professional discipline in design, which required open-minded specialists just like Professor Wang.

那时的上海科技大学正计划单独开设一门设计专业，正需要像王教授这样思想开放的专家。

Yin Jie, Vice President & Provost, Shanghai Tech University

印杰 上海科技大学常务副校长兼教务长

我们（学校）的教授如果从他上一份的工作而言，80%、90%都来自海外，是海外归国人员。他们来了以后可以带来很多多元的文化，不光光只是一个硬实力，比如做科研做得好，对我们的软实力事实上也是特别的重要。学生们变得能够不光光更加去理解我们的家国情怀，国际视野也是有了很大的提升的。

Around 80 to 90 percent of our university's professors have tutoring experience abroad before coming here. They are not just good in scientific research. They bring our students a multicultural sense, which improves their soft power. We hope our students can have a patriotic attitude, but can also embrace an international perspective.

Professor Wang says his students will be trained to combine knowledge of science and technology with an improved sense of aesthetics, enabling them to work in different sectors - film, game development, even the metaverse. He says his aim is to fill the gap between Chinese design creativity and the international practices, and his students say that's just what they want.

王教授说，他致力于培养能够将科技和一定审美相结合的复合型人才，他们能够在多领域进行创作，比如电影、游戏开发甚至是元宇宙。他说他的目标就是让中国学生的设计创意，能够在国际上落地呈现。他的学生们表示，这也正是他们想要的。

学生

Student

我了解到如何借助一些智能技术，来参与到设计的过程，更好地去实现设计的理念。

I've learned how to use smart technologies to realize my design concepts.

娱乐设计是今年新开的方向，我从小就对电影、游戏，包括现在新崛起的元宇宙感兴趣。学校在这方面也有很好的资源，有像王院长这样的学科带头人带我们做这方面的事情，所以我选了这个专业。

The entertainment major opened this year, and I've long been interested in film, games and the metaverse. Here we have people like Prof. Wang helping us with our research, and that's why I chose this major.

Prof. Wang Shouzhi, Vice Dean, School of Creativity & Art, Shanghai Tech University

王受之 上海科技大学创意与艺术学院副院长、教授

I hope in China we can help tobuild first grade design school. This is my dream. Chinese manufacturing in the previous 30 years developed very fast. In this development, our goal was for exporting products. And so many manufacturers they try to copy or imitate international design in a very fast manner. So finally they forgot what should be original and to be creative by themselves. This whole thing takes a long time to correct.

我希望中国能拥有一流的设计学校。这是我的梦想。过去30年，中国的制造业发展迅猛。在这样的发展背景下，我们的目标是产品的出口。为了实现这个目标，许多制造商转头就会去拷贝和模仿国际上别人的设计。那么最终学生就忘了什么该去原创，什么该自己去创造。这一切要花很长时间去矫正。

The dream is not confined to just Shanghai Tech University. Of the more than 3,000 universities in China, almost two-thirds now have art or design programs, enrolling more than half a million students each year. And there's plenty of demand for their talents. China is home to more than 65,000 large-scale creative companies that generated 4.4 percent of the country's GDP last year. When he's not in the classroom, Professor Wang gives lessons on social media platforms like Bilibili and regularly lectures at museums, galleries and exhibitions in Shanghai. Many of these lectures are open to high school students, providing even a larger audience to hear about designing China's dream.

上海科技大学，是艺术设计教育中国梦的一个缩影。在中国的3000多所大学中，有近三分之二的学校开设了艺术或设计专业，每年会招收50多万的学生。中国对于（艺术设计）人才的需求量是很大的。在中国，有超六万五千家大型艺术创意公司，去年它们贡献了4.4%的国内生产总值。王教授不在学校授课的时候，会在社交媒体平台上讲课，也会在上海的博物馆、画廊和展览上做一些常规的讲座。其中很多讲座都是对高中生开放的，这样就会有更多人能够聆听、追寻艺术设计的中国梦。