River Cheng was born in Taiwan, graduated from the Royal College of Art

( Innovation Design Engineering ), UK. He is addicted to design, and particularly good at Product Innovation Design, Finding Great Insights through User-Centered Design Research, User Experience Design and Storytelling. His super power is connecting the dots from different aspects and fields within his diverse background.

​

Currently River is a lead designer at Kohler. He currently leads the Kohler Electronics Product team from research phase to manufacturing phase, mainly focused on electronic consumer products, including Bidet, Water Filtration, Bathroom Heater, and Public Commercial products. Before Kohler, River was contracted at IDEO as a product designer for almost a year. While working for IDEO, River’s main focus was on user-centered design research, UX design, storytelling, and concept generation.

​

River has 10 years of engineering experience before he began working in industrial design. This enables him to put a strong technology and solid engineering background to use while designing innovative new products.

His 3 years of experience in the RCA and IDEO makes him very familiar

with user-centered research and design methodologies. 

​

Currently he is also a visiting tutor at the Industrial Design Department of Tongji University, which is the top design department in China. Furthermore, he has ripe and solid product manufacturing experience. During his three years at Kohler, he has led the team working on electronic products from the front-end (research, insights, ideation, concepts) to the back-end (product development & manufacturing phase). 

​

River has received over 35 prestigious international design awards since 2010, including IDEA Award, Red Dot Award, iF Award, and D&AD Award, etc. Furthermore, since 2015, River has applied for over 25 patents for Kohler, including 7 invention patents, 11 utility patents, and 7 design patents.