Who We Are

Design Sojourn is recognised both in Singapore and globally as a leader in Design Led Innovation, Design Thinking, Ethnographic Research, Business Model Innovation, and Experience Design.

8

Team Members

11

Years in Operation

300

Projects to Date

8

Team Members

11

Years in Operation

300

Projects to Date

Design Sojourn (established September 2010) is a Strategic Design and Innovation Consultancy passionate about making people’s lives better through Design.

We help organisations leverage on Design Led Innovation to create next generation business solutions that deliver innovative products, services, systems and processes.  To date, Design Sojourn has delivered over 300 projects and has established our brand as the go-to consultancy for human centred design and innovation. 

Our diverse team of award-winning designers bring to the table many years of experience designing commercially savvy solutions across multiple touch-points (Product, Digital, Brand, Service and Spatial) in a broad range of industries and organisations (Public, Private, Multi-Nationals, Small Medium Enterprises, NGOs and Charities).

Design Sojourn is based in Singapore and is supported by strategic partners from Singapore and around the world.

The Team

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Founder & Design Director

Brian Ling

Brian is an award winning design leader, specialising in strategic design and realisation programs that drive successful organisations and Fortune 500 businesses.

He is an expert in Design Strategy, Design Thinking, Design Management and Industrial Design. His 25-year career spans over multiple domains such as consumer electronics, healthcare, non-profit agencies, hospitality, F&B, retail, and online best in class service experiences.

He was formally a Senior Design Manager at Philips Design leading the design and innovation of their global portfolio of home entertainment products, and the Head of the Aesthetic Research and Design Department at Nakamichi.

He has been recognized with prestigious awards such as: 3 Red Dots in Product Design (2011, 2010, 2005), 3 IF Awards (2011 and 2010), The Singapore Design Award: Silver (2010), Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award (2007), 2 CES Innovations Award Honorees (2007), Red Dot Concept Award (2006), and a Merit in the Young Professional Designers Award (2002).

Together with Jackson Tan, they founded Methodology (in 2013) a Design Education Company.  He was invited (Sept 2012) to facilitate a workshop at the D.Confestival organised by the D.School in Potsdam, Germany.

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Partner & Creative Director

Jackson Tan

Jackson Tan is a Singaporean artist, designer, curator and Design Sojourn’s Creative Director of innovation implementation projects.

He is the creative director of BLACK, a multi-disciplinary creative agency (2002 – present) and founding partner of PHUNK, a contemporary art & design collective (1994 – present) based in Singapore.  Together with Brian Ling, they founded Methodology (2013 – present), a Design Education company.

He has collaborated and worked with brands and clients such as Nike, MTV, The Rolling Stones, Asian Civilisations Museum, Design Singapore, Herman Miller, UNIQLO, Levi’s and Tiger Beer. Notable projects include the brand concept and identity of SG50, to celebrate Singapore’s golden jubilee and the experience design of the Peranakan Museum.

He was awarded ‘Designer of the Year’ in 2007 by the President’s Design Award, the highest accolade for designers in Singapore.

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Director of Human Research

Lisa Choo

Lisa is fully qualified Clinical Psychologist and Director of Human Research at Design Sojourn. She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and is also a registered Psychologist in Sydney, NSW Australia where she was also trained as a clinical psychologist.

She has over 20 years of extensive experience in a variety of settings, both at Ministry-level, general and psychiatric hospitals, and community mental health services in Singapore and Australia where she provides individual/ group psychological consultation and assessment in areas such as motivation and resilience.  Lisa also has a personal interest in the field of happiness and positive psychology in which she actively conducts talks, seminars and workshops on.

It is from these experiences where she draws on her expertise in the understanding of human behavior, and the motivations and needs of people. She brings this knowledge to Design Sojourn’s focus on designing better customer centric solutions and experiences.

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Experience Designer

Khoo Yin Qi

Yin Qi is trained in the fields of user research and experience design, having led and executed numerous projects with industry collaborators such as the National University Hospital, Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and National Museum of Singapore throughout her time in NUS Industrial Design’s degree programme. Her group’s project to design for foreign domestic workers has won the second place in the MOM Service Design Competition (2016).

By taking on projects that range from medical product design to interaction design and exploratory design, Yin Qi has learned to design with both functional and emotional sensibilities, and especially enjoys employing design to empower the marginalised. In her previous project, she combined her interests in crafts, sustainability and social design to help individuals with intellectual disabilities by designing a unique up-cycling craft to create quality handmade products.

Yin Qi hopes to create a more inclusive and creative society through design, and also hopes for a greater love for the street dogs of Singapore.

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Experience Designer

Lok Bin Kai

Bin Kai perceives design as a window to gaining insights of his users’ needs, thoughts and emotions. His empathy-driven approach to designing allows him to forge a strong connection with his users.

He is trained in the fields of user research, experience design and industrial design where he has collaborated and completed multiple projects ranging from consumer products and medical devices to interaction design and ethnographic research.

His thesis project in Lasalle involved corroborating his ideas with extensive amounts of research, where he designed a medical equipment through an iterative process and understanding his users’ needs. His design won several accolades which include the Red Dot Design Award (2018) and IF Design Award (2018).

He believes that the ability to understand and attempt to ‘walk around in another’s shoe’ would create manifold opportunities in the world we live in.

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Junior Experience Designer

Syam Hussain

Syam is a junior experience designer who believes that good design research is paramount to impactful design solutions. Passionate about people and the community, he uses his ability to observe and connect with individuals on a personal level to gather meaningful insights.

He is trained in the fields of service design, experience design and product design where he has completed projects ranging from custom furniture pieces for newly opened cafes to outdoor installations for social impact.

In his previous project, he used various ethnographic research methods to understand underlying issues involving transient workers in Singapore and designed and outdoor music installation to bring about intergroup contact between transient workers and Singaporeans.

Syam is a firm believer that design should not be limited to shaping beautiful objects, but rather a tool to bring about meaningful impact to people’s lives.

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Experience Designer

Jeremiah Tan

Jeremiah is an experience designer who subscribes to the maxim that “good design is good business”. He is part of a new breed of designers emerging from the business world that feel strongly about redefining the role of design in businesses today.

As a former senior analyst with a business consulting background, he has worked on several branding, franchising, innovation, M&A, and transformation projects for SMEs across a wide breadth of industries.

He previously worked on a strategic planning project for one of the largest adhesives companies in the Philippines where he travelled across Metro Manila to interview various stakeholders to glean insights, led the management through a visioning workshop, and developed a transformation roadmap to guide the company to achieve its goal of professionalising itself over the next few years.

Jeremiah strives to blend the best that the business and design world has to offer in order to create meaningful experiences that will leave a positive impact on the lives of others.

Your Name Here

Do you want to make the world a better place through Design?  If so, we would love to hear from you and how you can be part of the team. Chat us up here.