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Mel Lim featured in The Star Malaysian Newspaper

January 27, 2012 by Mel Lim | business, cool stuff, creative, press | 0 Comments

Mel Lim was featured on the front page of Malaysia’s The Star 2 newspaper on January 1, 2012. Inside was a full spread article on this Malaysian born Chinese designer, who grew up in the small island of Penang and her story of how she made her mark in design in the US. Read full article here.

Stories by MAJORIE CHIEW

(The Star is an English-language, tabloid-format newspaper in Malaysia. It is the largest in terms of circulation in Malaysia, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It has a daily circulation of between 290,000 to 300,000. The Star is a member of the Asia News Network.)

Pg4, The Star, January 1, 2012
CHALLENGING JOURNEY TO SUCCESS
It took grit and determination – not to mention a lot of instant noodles – for this Malaysian to turn her passion into an award-winning business.

WHEN Mel Lim chose her field of further education, there was much wailing and crying. Literally.

“There was a ton of family drama involved. No one really knew back then (in the 1990s) what career you could build with a design degree. It all seemed so silly but, at that time, my decision to become a designer came with a lot of tears and quarrels,” says Lim, 34, in an e-mail interview from San Diego, California, where her award-winning design and business consultancy is now based.

After finishing secondary school at Convent Green Lane in Penang, Lim urged her mum to allow her to attend art school. “My mother always knew that I was going to grow up to be a designer,” says Lim. “Nonetheless, like most Asian parents, she was very apprehensive about the design field I was going into since my first choice was fashion design.”

So Lim ended up in a local college to prepare for more “normal” tertiary education either in Australia or Britain. But then, a couple of months into her term, Lim attended a British Council education event and spoke to a representative from the prestigious London Institute (now University of the Arts London). After that, she was all the more determined to enrol in an art school.

Faced with Lim’s renewed determination, mum wavered – and it certainly helped Lim’s case that mum herself ran an interior design business. And so, in 1996, Lim finished her Art & Design Foundation Studies at the London Institute’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design through the twinning programme at Kolej Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya. She then went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design (1997 to 2000) from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, with the highest distinction.

The design world is lucky Lim stubbornly held onto her dream because since graduating, she has worked with top architectural and design firms in the United States on projects ranging in variety from retail centres, museums and casinos to stadia and mixed-use developments.

Since establishing her own design studio, Mel Lim Design, in 2003 when she was just 26, Lim has been consulting and designing for Fortune 100 companies with the result that her works are now being seen the world over, from London and Copenhagen, all the way to Tokyo and the United Arab Emirates.

Lim has also been recognised by numerous prestigious accolades including the Creativity International Annual Awards and the American Institute of Architects (Los Angeles chapter) awards. In 2010, her studio picked up three Graphic Design USA awards, one of the highest and most difficult design awards to achieve in America.

Apart from being invited to participate in international exhibitions like 100% Design Tokyo, an annual event that gathers the latest designs and leading designers, museums have come calling too. In London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts has among its exhibits Lim’s recycled cotton totes, which were also featured in designer Jitesh Patel’s iconic book, The Tote Bag, published last year.

Today, Lim also writes and gives seminars and workshops on design and innovation. She is an active member of America’s Design Management Institute where she contributes articles on design thinking, client management and design and business innovation.

And, yes, today there is much laughter and cheering back home in Penang, we’re sure, replacing the “quarrels and tears” that marked the beginning of Lim’s journey!

Making her own way

“Challenging, exciting, sad, happy, confusing!” – those are the words Lim chooses to describe the first few years of American college life in Pasadena.

Lim says: “I got off at Los Angeles International Airport with two giant suitcases, and a friend’s friend of my sister helped me find an apartment to rent near my college. Three days later, I found a roommate and moved in. And then school started.”

For the first three months, she walked (or hitchhiked) 3.2km to school and lived mainly on instant noodles (her mum sent her boxes of the stuff!).

A couple of months after her arrival in the United States, the 1997/98 Asian economic crisis hit and even the instant noodles began looking good.

Lim’s father had to ask her to choose between returning home and staying on but managing on her own, as “money will be tight”. After going through all the drama of choosing this field of study, Lim wasn’t about to turn tail and return home, of course. She chose to stay.

Attending private art school was very expensive, so Lim took three part-time jobs at college and, amazingly for someone who was just 18, she also managed to get a position as a part-time intern at well-known local design agency, Hunt Design Associates. Lim had shared her financial problems due to the crisis with her college’s career counsellor, who then went the extra mile to get that position for Lim.

This turned out to be a crucial step because Lim met her first mentor at Hunt Design: her boss Wayne Hunt, who was also a teacher at Art Center College of Design.

“Wayne was a great mentor and an awesome businessman and his team was fantastic. They taught me everything I know about placemaking and environmental graphic design,” says Lim.

When Lim turned up for the interview, though, Hunt thought she was terribly young to be hunting (pun fully intended, says Lim!) for a job. “Wayne said, ‘Mel, you’re not even of legal drinking age! You’re so young!”

But she needed to work desperately to pay her way through college. Not only that, “I was so willing to learn. I was relentless. I would do anything and everything to learn about American businesses, office cultures, projects – and what they say is true, when you learn on the job, you will learn fast!”

She remembers the first time Hunt took her along for a meeting in Las Vegas to see a big wig at the famous MGM Grand Hotel and Casino – and she had no clue who he was.

“And the next thing you know, we flew back to LA, and off I went to class that same evening. It was super cool for me, to be in two completely different worlds in one day!

It was a great learning experience for her, and by 1999, she was working full time; upon graduation in 2000, Lim worked for several other design agencies, and by 24, she was designing retail centres and malls in the United States and Spain.

An early start

Working hard is nothing new to this gutsy Penangite. At 13, when her friends were hanging out at the mall, Lim already had a job!

This was thanks to her mum, says Lim: “What I learned mostly from her was tenacity and dedication to work and business. I think I inherited those traits from her.”

Lim’s mother, the late Katherine Ch’ng (she died in 2010), owned a small interior decor/furniture shop. On weekends, Lim would watch her select fabrics and materials for various projects.

“I helped her write out furniture, finishes and equipment specs for projects and learnt how to put mood boards together. We often had deadlines for events in big hotels and mum was always stressing out,” Lim reminisces.

After that, her mum had her learn drafting on the job. Her first drafting experience was at 13 and was for an open plan office system for an automobile showroom; she also learned how to make furniture sales, Lim says.

Lim’s father, the late T.C. Lim (who died last year), a developer, also inspired her work ethic: “My father was a man of few words. But watching him rise in business from humble beginnings, with seemingly endless courage and perseverance, inspired me tremendously,” she says.

A career in architecture did cross her mind years ago but she did not pursue it. Instead, Lim knew her calling because “my passion for design spans beyond spaces and experiences”.

It was the right choice, it seems. Over the last few years, Lim says, the emphasis in corporate America is on innovation and design-based thinking. “I’m very happy that I stayed on this path. Now, I get to be among the movers and shakers in using design thinking as a tool in business innovation.”

Balancing act

Since she left to study in the United States in 1997, Lim has only been back to Malaysia twice. Once on her honeymoon after she married her creative partner, Joe Keylon, and once for her mother’s funeral. With both parents having passed away, her older sister decided to move to America too last year and now lives in New York.

After those hard early years, “It’s nice to finally have a blood relative close by,” says Lim. “After a while, I got used to living alone, away from my family and all I was accustomed to,” adding that she “misses Penang food the most!”

Lim is also building her own family. She met her husband of 10 years while in college: “We’ve known each other for almost 12 years now. He is also a designer. He is my business partner, my confidant and my best friend,” says Lim. And in April last year, the couple added a third member to the family, a son.

“Motherhood has definitely changed the perspective on my life’s goals but it hasn’t stopped my pace whatsoever. I’m still working as hard as ever. Harder actually. Now, I’m balancing all the different roles I have to play: mother, entrepreneur, designer and wife – and it’s a BIG challenge.”

Indeed, there are days when she is in meetings with clients seven to eight hours straight, and there are days when she’s running around dealing with vendors. She also travels a lot for conferences and events. And in between all those meetings and the travel, she designs and manages her staff….

When she has the time, she will catch a movie with her husband and go for walks with their son and an 11-year-old Chihuahua. And despite all the travelling she does for work, she likes to travel for holidays, too. “We take a big vacation about once a year or whenever we can,” she says, “and since I travel quite a bit for business during the year, when it comes to a vacation, we always choose a place where we can either enjoy the scenery or where we can explore new cultures.”

Everything, from vacations to neighbourhood walks, it’s all fodder for her imagination and her designs – it almost seems as if Lim is constantly working.

“I have no set working hours,” she agrees, adding, “that’s the joy of running my own business, I get to dictate my own hours – though, at the same time, I’m at the mercy of my client’s schedules and deadlines!

Her craziest record of work hours to date is 1,500+ hours in three months. “That’s, like, an 18-hour work day, seven days a week for three months straight!”

Stress? It’s not stressful when you love your work, maintains Lim, and are successful at it.

“Success is being able to do what I love and be rewarded both monetarily and emotionally,” she says. “It’s the moment when clients call and tell me that the work we’ve done for them has propelled them in directions they could never have imagined before.

“Success can also be simply sitting at my desk, enjoying the work that I do, and doing it with integrity and passion,” says Lim.

Her biggest hope for her business is to continue to have opportunities to work with amazing people, and produce meaningful designs. “Nothing too extravagant, as I have realised that, sometimes, the simplest goals can be the most challenging.”

Like the simple goal a Penang lass had to become a designer – just look where it has brought her!

Pg5, The Star, January 1, 2012
MEL’S SAVVY MOVES

THERE she was, a young Asian woman in Alabama, faced with 10 white men from the American Deep South who wanted to use the Confederate flag as a design element in their retail project.

“Back then, I lacked an understanding of American culture, brands and business etiquette,” recalls Mel Lim.

She didn’t realise that, historically, Alabama was Confederate territory during the American Civil War, and that the use of that old flag would be very controversial indeed in the 21st century.

When she went back home to the studio she was working for then, 11 years ago, and relayed the request, her bosses asked, “Mel, do you know what a Confederate flag is?” and she admitted she didn’t. That’s when hubby Joe Keylon decided to “educate” Lim: “It’s time to watch some Civil War movies, like Gone With The Wind, and understand what the South is all about!” he said.

After immersing herself in all things Southern, Lim realised she couldn’t use the flag as a design element to reflect the client’s “Southern pride” So she devised another way: “I showed them beautiful illustrations and colours inspired by Southern flowers and trees, and they were blown away. We were all happy, and no Confederate flags were needed in any banner designs. Phew!”

This and other early experiences taught her a great deal about how she runs her business and treats clients today, says Lim.

“It’s always better to be honest than to pretend to know something you don’t. Allow yourself some leeway to research and strategise so that you can bring better, more impactful ideas and solutions to the table.”

She also learnt how not to run a business after several unpleasant experiences when interviewing for jobs.

“I had yet to learn about office politics. I remember having to wait three hours to be interviewed by a legendary designer in LA, and everyone made out like she was some kind of celebrity and a tiger lady. It turned out that her staff had hyped it all up and she was the most pleasant, cool lady ever.”

And then there was the time the interviewer completely forgot Lim was to meet her! “After I waited for four hours, I knew it was a place I would never ever want to work for!”

After setting up Mel Lim Design in 2003, Lim became her own boss and soon expanded her business beyond design to also offer workshops on corporate culture- and brand-building as well as strategy sessions for brand managers, CEOs and management teams.

Mel Lim Design is also a green consultancy, she says: “Our green consulting is woven into every service offered to our clients. Sustainability to us is not just hype or a marketing tool,” she explains.

“It’s a commitment to understanding the processes of creating and producing products and ideas, and how those processes impact on the business and customers both socially and environmentally. And we do this from the inception of an idea all the way through to the user experience on the shelf.”

Lim also uses licensing partnerships to great effect. “An example is Mel Lim by Blik, where Blik, an award-winning studio in Los Angeles (which offers removable wall graphics), took our designs and turned them into wall decals,” she explains.

“We’re able to not only promote their Blik products alongside ours during trade shows in London and Tokyo but we have brought their brand international exposure, and we got them published in the New York Times and in other big media publications.”

Lim has also launched her own lifestyle product line called Joy – it was the line’s charming online site, joybymellim.com, that drew our attention to her, actually. The line’s paper and home decor items are sold to more than 500 retailers in the United States and internationally, according to Lim.

Despite sounding like a very savvy businesswoman, Lim insists that “I’m quite the unwilling entrepreneur and never wanted my own business!” and says that hubby Joe handles a lot of the workload.

“For Joy, he is the production manager, dealing mostly with order fulfilment, production and trade shows, while I deal mostly with the product design and customer/client management,” says Lim, adding that they bring in seasonal staff when needed.