The impact of design goes beyond solving problems but also creating empowering narratives, says the DesignSingapore Scholar. He wants to support communities by giving them a voice in society, just as the self-professed introvert found his through design.
Like many designers, Sim Hao Jie entered the profession to create “nice-looking” things. He once aspired to design iconic products, following in the footsteps of his idols like Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa. Today, however, Sim believes design can do more than just create beautiful and useful objects; it can address complex social issues that the world is facing.
Over time, the definition of design has widened to helping society articulate things and better understand them. It’s not about ‘I’m going to become this design hero who is going to appear on magazines and posters’. It’s about me playing my part to activate the community with a solution or framework that helps.
— Sim Hao Jie
This change in thinking is a culmination of Sim’s journey into design over the last decade. It started in junior college when he was tasked to create information panels for a minister’s visit and was introduced to the drawing software Adobe Illustrator. Sim got hooked on designing with it and began considering a career in graphic design – it fuelled his childhood interest of doodling and “making something out of nothing”.
This interest was further flamed during National Service when he won a competition organised by his unit to design a National Day Parade poster. Seeing his work plastered all over Singapore showed him the impact of design, and he eventually applied to two courses in university: visual communications at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and industrial design at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Sim was eventually accepted into the latter.
“I thought I was going to go into visual communications and even applied to intern at a graphic design studio. But I chose industrial design because doing 3D things looked so cool,” he says.
Expanding his view of design
At the NUS Division of Industrial Design, Sim discovered a profession beyond his expectations. He saw peers do more than just sketch; they experimented with craft, developed visual merchandising for corporations and created services in collaboration with government agencies.
They also conducted research, just as he did for a 2014 competition to design solutions for maintaining clean toilets in the National University Hospital (NUH). Sim and his team shadowed cleaners to observe the challenges they faced in their daily routine before proposing three designs. Even though they were some of the youngest participants, the team beat their seniors and even professional designers.
We submitted a report detailing the patterns of cleaning and I think it made things easier to understand. I felt that really set us apart. It also really hit me that good research can resonate with people.
— Sim Hao Jie
He subsequently worked on similar projects in school. In 2015, he was part of a team that won the LITE-ON Innovation Award in Taiwan for designing an exercise unit that could be attached on beds of patients under intensive care in NUH to aid recovery. Sim also participated in a workshop organised by the Asian Smart Living International School in Kaohsiung in the same year to design a virtual reality experience for people to experience dementia to raise awareness about the challenges of living with the syndrome. This experience planted the seeds for his interest in designing for social good.
After graduating top of his cohort in 2016, Sim joined industrial design consultancy NextOfKin Creatives and began designing products for a range of commercial clients.
“When I just graduated, I wanted to be this kickass industrial designer who practises sketching every day and can build like super good CAD (Computer-Aided Design) models,” he says.
Becoming a more sociable designer
In 2017, some friends invited him to join them in participating in a designathon to solve challenges for persons with disabilities. The easy-going Sim went along for fun and was energised by the event organised by Urban Prototyping Singapore and the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg).
“We got to talk to visually impaired persons to create solutions. Our team had computer scientists and counsellors, and I was thinking ‘Wow, I get to learn other disciplines and work with them to create something together’,” he recalls. “It was really enjoyable to do this for good. And when you present your work, you just feel a bit more accomplished.”
Sim began making a point of participating in at least one such event every year. In 2019, he was part of the team that won the National Council of Social Services’ Design Challenge with a prototype platform for seniors to contribute meaningfully to society. Senior Active Force SG (SAFSG) was subsequently expanded in 2021 with the support of Dsg’s Good Design Research initiative, and the team developed it into a framework to help others design meaningful experiences for seniors to age actively.
The project also led Sim to connect with the philanthropic Lien Foundation, which gave birth to another project with seniors. This time he worked with his employer NextOfKin and heritage consultancy Bridging Generations on a programme called the Silver Pride Lion Troupe. The troupe comprises seniors from Fei Yue Active Ageing Centre (Holland Close) who were trained to perform a lion dance. The project was successful because it tapped on the nostalgia that seniors have for familiar cultural activities to promote active ageing.
Such projects helped Sim realised how he could contribute to addressing societal issues as a designer. It also helped him overcome his introverted nature, he adds.
What I enjoyed most about these kinds of projects was I’m learning about people, systems and how society works. It made me talk to people, and feel I had a much broader role to play as a designer.
— Sim Hao Jie
Designing for lasting change
In 2024, Sim left his job to enrol in the Master of Fine Arts in Design for Social Innovation programme at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He also applied for the DesignSingapore Scholarship to become part of a network of like-minded individuals, many whom he met through events organised by the group. Sim has also personally worked with some of them over the years, including Yeo Ker Siang and Wendy Chua.
Although he is only a few months into his two-year programme, it has already helped Sim reflect on his achievements thus far with social design. He realises the impact of his senior lion dance troupe project goes beyond the artefacts and experience his team created but also the narrative it presents about seniors.
Design can reflect the voices of the communities. It can create the conditions where people can better talk about themselves such that it becomes a new way of life. The real solution in the case of the lion dance project is it shifted mindsets. People don’t usually think of seniors doing lion dance. Design has the power to create narratives for people to believe in.
— Sim Hao Jie
Silver Pride Lion Troupe project has indeed captured the attention of both international and local media and even won the top prize at the Singapore Good Design Awards 2024. But Sim says this is just a start: the question next is how to turn the project into lasting change. This is one of the reasons he is furthering his studies: to learn about different financial models and social support systems to ensure his future designs are sustainable in the long-term.
“The state of design for social innovation now is about designathons and is very focused on the outcome. The real work is about going deep into the community and finding levers to make things run,” he says. “It’s really about working with the communities, stakeholders, organisations and even businesses to figure out.”
Another important group is young designers keen on making social change, Sim adds. He is looking forward to nurturing the next generation of social designers in Singapore so as to grow a community.
Change is sometimes uncomfortable for people and change may take a long time. Society needs more people working on social design to do lasting work. Just because of the fact that we exist in a community means people need to work together to transform society.
— Sim Hao Jie
The same can be said of Sim’s transformation as a designer. It was through countless interactions and conversations with people from all walks of life that led him to social design. And he is now laying a pathway for others to follow in his footsteps.
