Since returning to Malaysia, the question of how to engage a design-curious audience has remained central to our work. Beyond background or discipline, we are interested in how people might participate in a shared cultural shift that we would call the New Design Merdeka. Merdeka here is not about erasure or rejection of the past, but a conscious return to what already exists — skills, knowledge, and local narratives — and exploring how they can be reactivated. Freedom, in this sense, comes from creating an open yet intentional framework for exchange. Design Merdeka: A to XYZ emerges from this thinking: an accessible platform that uses events as a tool to share knowledge, build networks, and stimulate ongoing conversations within the design community.

So, Design Merdeka: A to XYZ is the progeny of this idea… a kind of soft power in making new changes in an existing environment.

It is a design sharing session.

It is a design conference.

It is a design networking platform.

It is a design stimulation hotspot.”

Get to know more about the podcast via @xyzbroadcast.

Visual direction by Yusuf Ismadi