The 'tree of hardship' has been transformed into a 'tree of technology' — the feature records the moment when the modular customizable Chinese lacquer eyeglasses designed by Yuan Duanjiao with a team of teachers and students from Xi'an Jiaotong University won the 2025 'iF Design Award'.

Key points of the report

• Her family founded the 'Zhengdaming' firm in the late Qing period, and a century later she revived it;
• Taking orders on e-commerce, running media accounts, shipping by courier — she hit every pitfall on the entrepreneurial road;
• Raw lacquer is a niche track but also a blue ocean; with the advantage of origin-based materials, annual turnover on e-commerce platforms is considerable;
• Last year, floating lacquer went viral on short video platforms, and the advantage of being an origin producer brought traffic dividends;
• The modular customizable Chinese lacquer eyeglasses developed with a team of teachers and students from Xi'an Jiaotong University received the 2025 'iF Design Award'.

Direct quotes

'When you move forward with your heart in it, there will always be unexpected surprises.' In the report she mentions that the masters, designers and teachers who accompanied her along the way gave her a deeper sense of responsibility for carrying forward and innovating the lacquer craft.