By Emily Hawthorne
What happens when a designer stops designing for clients and starts designing for those who have no voice at all? For award-winning product designer and cultural storyteller Yefan Liu, the answer begins with endangered animals and ends in a studio filled with prototypes, stamps, thermal sensors, and stories waiting to be told.
In the second half of 2025, Liu will officially join the emerging creative studio LITE READY LLC as Principal Product Designer, a move that marks both a professional pivot and a personal return. Her new role centers on developing a Kickstarter-bound design collection rooted in wildlife protection—an extension of her internationally exhibited “Endangered Animal Series.” This time, however, it’s not just about images or installations. It’s about interaction, routine, and empathy—packaged into objects for daily life.
A Storyteller with Global Recognition
Liu is no newcomer to critical acclaim. Over the past few years, her work has won some of the most prestigious honors in global design: IDA Gold, Indigo Design Gold, Paris Design Award, London Design Silver, and more. These accolades reflect a body of work that bridges industrial design, environmental consciousness, and visual narrative.
Her mixed-reality installation The Mukden Palace Experience, which used AR headsets to immerse visitors in a reimagined imperial journey, received praise not just for technical elegance but for making history feel touchable. But Liu’s artistic compass has often pointed toward something wilder, more fragile: the natural world and its silent decline.
That instinct crystallized in her now-iconic Endangered Animal Stamp Poster Series—a set of more than 70 illustrated stamp designs that render vanishing species in poetic detail. Exhibited at the “Glory, Homeland, and the Future” show in London, the series struck a balance between whimsy and urgency. “I wanted to make people stop and feel something for the forgotten lives that still share this planet with us,” Liu explained in a 2024 interview.
Then came Thermal Animals, an interactive installation shown in Brooklyn’s “Symbiosis” exhibition. When visitors held the photo in their palms, their warmth gently revealed the endangered animal—flickering, vanishing, returning. “You saw yourself reflected in a disappearing animal,” one attendee recalled. It was art, technology, and vulnerability, all colliding in one shared moment.
From Exhibits to Everyday Objects
At LITE READY, Liu will be scaling these moments. The upcoming collection will transform the spirit of those exhibitions into tangible goods—beautiful, intelligent, and emotionally resonant. Think sculptural pet beds shaped like abstract habitats; kinetic wall hangings that change with ambient temperature; postcard kits with scannable AR stories. “We will be designing for the intersection of affection and extinction,” Liu says.
Each product tells a micro-story—not just about the animal represented, but about the human relationship to it. “If a mug or a lamp or a cushion can remind someone of an animal they’d never meet, then we’ve built a bridge,” she says.
This new line is slated to launch on Kickstarter later this year. But Liu is also taking the longer view: reaching out to conservation NGOs, building partnerships that extend beyond objects and into advocacy. A percentage of profits will be directed to wildlife protection efforts, but the goal is deeper than charity. “I want people to feel like co-authors,” Liu insists. “Design can turn spectators into stewards.”
Building a Studio for the Anthropocene
Liu is redefining what it means to be a designer in the Anthropocene—the geological age defined by human impact. “A lot of people think sustainability means bamboo forks and beige packaging,” she jokes. “But sustainability is emotional. If we don’t feel connected to something, we don’t fight for it.”
Her design language is rooted in emotion, not just function. That’s why she often begins with narrative rather than form. “I ask myself: what does this animal need to say? Then I ask: how can an object carry that voice into someone’s kitchen or bag or shelf?”
This approach has gained traction not just with critics and curators, but with a growing generation of creators who see design as activism. Liu has spoken at eco-design forums, mentored student artists, and collaborated across disciplines—from industrial engineers to wildlife photographers. Her creative method is open-source and collaborative, built on the idea that good design listens before it speaks.
Toward a New Design Archetype
In a world where urgency is the new aesthetic, Liu’s work stands out for its slowness, softness, and sincerity. She’s not chasing trends. She’s chasing meaning.
Her upcoming Kickstarter collection will be the first consumer-facing extension of her endangered species series—but not the last. “We’re already thinking about educational versions, museum editions, and more collaborations,” she says. “It’s a conversation starter.”
And that’s exactly what Yefan Liu hopes to design: not just things, but dialogues—tactile, tender, and wildly alive.
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