We sent our senior designer Charinee Srisantitham to a 4-day Master Class for Designers called "Originality in Design" and "Concept Design". Organised by DesignSingapore Council of the Ministry of Communications and Information, the course is facilitated by renowned design professional Nick Pugh. Nick has more than 15 years of experience in the entertainment design industry working on numerous films and video game projects that include the Green Lantern, X-men First Class, Superman Returns, etc. Each Master Class will end off with a public seminar and showcase the designs explored by students as the outcomes of the course.

1. Tell us briefly about the course.

I attended 2 courses "Originality in Design" and "Concept Design"; both of them were for designers from the entertainment design industry. The first one was about understanding originality in design by going through the process of shedding personal cliches, researching and exploring new ideas, and developing and applying a graphic language to the design of architecture, vehicles, products, and characters.

The second one was about understanding Concept Design by learning the process, using the storyboards to block out the major scenes in the production, and creating a concept design for environment, vehicles, props, characters, and overall look.

2. Can you share with us the thoughts behind your designs and their rationale for this workshop?

In the class of Originality in Design, Nick has shown us several ways to get the inspiration. In my case, I got it from a strongest memory of my dream and transformed it to a graphic that represented my story. In Concept Design class, we worked as one production and our work was based on the same screenplay, so I created concepts through the exploration and picked the one that was in line with what the writer wanted most. And at the end of each course, all the works that we've done were shown in a public seminar.

3. Share with us some new perspectives you've acquired from the training?

First, I've to say that there were so many talented and awesome people in the class. They came from the different backgrounds, ages, and physical conditions. These people have shown me that there are so many kinds of art out there and that really made me more open-minded and self-aware. It's really inspired me to try to adapt an unexpected design thinking method and art form from a different design industry to the interior industry.

4. As an interior designer, how have you benefited from the course?

I've learnt so much from the courses and people there. The course itself allowed me to practice and explore the thinking method which is very useful for every designer. It's the foundation of creativity. For my classmates, some of they were from entertainment design industry, so the tools and programmes that they used were different. It was really challenging for me to try to keep up and pick up what they did. This motivated me to overcome myself when I was totally out of my comfort zone.

5. How would you rate the difficulty or relevance of this course for interior designers?

As the only interior designer in the class, the difficulty will be 10 out of 10. I was totally clueless and out of my comfort zone at that time.

6. What is the most important thing you've learnt in this course?

Be positive and open-minded. I've learnt that when I feel good about myself and what I'm doing, even though it's tough, I'm confident that I can get through it and be more creative.