Up and up: Koto’s Shiqing Zhu has been on an incredible journey and she’s not looking to stop

Shiqing Zhu has come a long way, both literally and figuratively. She’s made her way from Shanghai to the heart of New York, now working as a Designer at Koto’s NYC studio. She’s also grown from a starry-eyed kid who was steered into the world of design through her love for anime to being a designer with polished skills working on identities and strategies for heavy-hitting brands. A lot of her work today is touched by her keen understanding of the similarities and differences between the cultures of the East and the West. Having grown up in Shangai and now living in the Big Apple, she can easily point out what makes each part of the world tick, and she brings this understanding to her work. “My familiarity with both Western and Eastern cultures allows me to think beyond a single viewpoint,” she tells us. We caught up with Zhu to look back on her journey, her arrival in New York, and finding her place in Koto that began with an internship, and along the way, get a taste of her hunger to keep creating contextual, meaningful work. RB: Hi, Shiqing! How has New York been treating you lately?