around the world
I was born in the Netherlands. Later I moved to the U.S and lived in California until I moved to Detroit for my studies. After graduation I worked and lived in Cologne, Germany. Now I'm living and working as a car designer in Paris, France. Since my parents are of Chinese-Indonesian descent and I was born in Holland and moved to America, I consider myself a Chinese-Indonesian-Dutch-American. If there are others out there, let me know. I actually managed to find a Dutch-Indonesian car designer, which is already quite amazing.
car design
I've been drawing cars since I can remember. My childhood hero was the Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has designed everything from Volkswagens to Maseratis. I was fortunate to get accepted to the transportation design program at CCS. Since I lived in California I also considered attending Art Center in Pasadena of course, but I don't regret having gone to CCS instead . The competitive atmosphere there eliminated any type of social life, but it paid off in the end.You can see some of my student work on my portfolio page. I learned a lot at school, but am still learning to this day. Unfortunately, we don't spend all day drawing and playing with clay models. After graduation I worked at Ford of Europe, where I worked on the 2001 Mondeo (I did the wheels and the rear lamps!), designed the initial theme model for the 2002 Fiesta, and later worked on the Focus replacement. I'm now working in the medium car design studio at Renault. For those wondering, I drive a silver Ford Ka, which is perfect for Parisian city driving.
personal interests
So what do I do when I'm not designing cars? I love travelling and finding good places to eat:) Favorite destinations I've visited are Barcelona, Spain and the Loire Valley in France. My favorite food includes Won Ton noodle soup, dutch Kroketten (fried, breaded, ragout croquettes), good pizza (with extra garlic), and all sorts of seafood. I like cycling (I've got four bikes now!) and I'm learning snowboarding too. The inline skates I bought a while back are finally getting some use. As far as music goes, I like Bjork, Placebo, Cake, Portishead, and Morcheeba among others. I discovered Bic Runga on MTV Asia in 1998, and was glad to find a popular Asian English speaking artist. Pulp Fiction and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels are two of the few movies I really like. 1999 was a good year with American Beauty, Fight Club, and the Matrix getting my thumbs up. I saw Chungking Express by Kar-wai Wong on video and thought its was pretty slick too. Oh yeah, I also like to read (mostly magazines and non-fiction, but also the occasional novel). Favorite authors are James Burke, Richard Feynmann and Fritjof Capra. Wallpaper, Car, and Max (German edition) are some of my favorite mags. My favorite cool gadget is an iPod that I bought at Amazon. I'm a Mac-head so it was the obvious choice and designed so much better than the rest. Would love to get an iBook next.
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