When Jonathan Ramalho and Oliver Lehtonen met at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design as exchange students, not only did it sow the seeds of a strong friendship, but it also resulted in the two collaborating on a film project that would become Designers Inbetween, a documentary released in January 2015 that explores Hong Kong’s design industry, from the youngest start-ups to some of the industry’s best-known names. We speak to Jonathan about the film. 

I didn’t intend to go into film. It just felt like the best medium to convey the story. What I love about film is that you’re able to capture so much more compared to text – expressions, tones of voice, and more. 

Once we had the idea for the film, we met up with Roger Ball [a PolyU professor of product design and the author of Design Direct]. He was our first interviewee and he fell in love with the concept. He knew that there was something going on with design in Hong Kong, that it was at a certain climax – that there was a lot of interest, but nobody had captured the story. 

Our approach was to find inspiring stories that we could learn from. We wanted to find people who had taken a risk and followed their passion into a business. The main goal of Designers Inbetween was to inspire and motivate young and passionate people to materialise their dreams, and I wanted to make a documentary that shows the case studies of people who have actually done it. Hopefully, people all over the world who don’t hve access to these sorts of communities or environments will watch it and gain something from these stories. 

The great thing about Hong Kong in comparison to most mature design capitals such as London, Milan and New York is that it’s still very vulnerable and very young. That facilitates more collaboration and more fluidity. Designers don’t have a burden of a goal that they need to reach. I think that nurtures the curiosity of designers to just produce without much expectation. 

 There’s an important focus on how design can support Hong Kong’s growth. Everyone’s talking about innovation, but what is innovation? It’s the creative process. I think corporate leaders and tycoons are going to look more towards design and designers. 

Images: Jonathan Ramalho; film still of fashion label Tangram’s Paola Sinisterra from the documentary 

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