Established in 2022 in its current form, Edinburgh-based design firm Time Machine + Folks provides the vehicle for founder and creative director Thorranze J. Z. Cheung to bring cross-cultural, life-changing design into the world. “We are the disruptive challengers with a loving heart,” he says, describing the studio. “We want to make a positive impact and challenge whatever norms and stereotypes exist, [but we also] bring design to things that will integrate into people’s everyday lives, inviting everyone on a journey of making things better around us.” Having grown up in Guangzhou, China, Cheung witnessed and protested against the dissolving of Cantonese culture through government mandates that enforced speaking Mandarin; desperate to preserve a bit of regional culture in his neighborhood, he turned to documenting and designing pieces that highlighted Cantonese slang, customs, typography and architecture, which instilled in him a burgeoning interest in design activism. He went on to study advertising at Jinan University in Guangzhou, interning at Dentsu and then McCann, before moving to Edinburgh to pursue his master’s degree in graphic design at the Edinburgh College of Art. Upon graduating in a tough job market in 2017, Cheung founded RED UNIT, his own design consultancy that would eventually lay the groundwork for Time Machine + Folks. “From day one, I’ve defined my practice as an intercultural design consultancy,” he explains. “During the RED UNIT period, clients saw [us] as focusing on a niche regional market, but in reality, creating cultural harmony was the ultimate goal I was striving for. Time Machine + Folks brings the focus back to creativity and design from marketing, something I truly believe in, and manifests the vision and life mission I have developed over my life. Time Machine + Folks is a dream where we can all be equal, recognizing that beyond any identities and roles, we are all just folk.”