In Henry Steiner and Ken Haas’ book named Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in a Global Marketplace, Steiner discussed Cross-Cultural Design, a design principle and theory that he had created to emphasise on the importance of designing between cultures without appropriating them. He goes by the principle of “carefully maintaining the difference between Eastern and Western culture” (Steiner, and Haas, 7).
In an era where colonisation is prevalent, Steiner works to design without mixing or combining different cultures together. Especially in Hong Kong, dubbed as the “East meets West”, or the “Pearl of the Orient”, the two different cultures are bound to be appropriated by the colonisers. As a practitioner of his Cross-Cultural Design theory, he mentioned that as a cross-cultural designer, the goal is “to achieve a harmonious juxtaposition; more of an interaction than a synthesis” (Steiner, and Haas, 9). He emphasises on complementing the two cultures in a design rather than mixing or blending. Steiner expressed a strong objection towards concepts of hybridity, as he mentioned that those would only result in a dissatisfactory design piece.
Steiner has also shared the different cross-cultural design techniques in his book to achieve an exemplary cross-cultural design work. Amongst them would be split imagery or “rhyming”, where he mentioned that is the basic way of implementing a cross-cultural design. It involves the process of combining incomplete individual images while possessing a characteristic in common (Steiner, and Haas, 36). Steiner can be seen using this technique in most of his cross-cultural design works.
Steiner’s cross-cultural design theory was not only utilised by him, but also by other designers after his theory became popularised.
Works Cited:
Steiner, Henry, and Ken Haas. “Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in the Global Marketplace”. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995.
Amienah Simangoon 