Nathan Yong graduated from Temasek Polytechnic in Industrial Design in 1991 and begins his career not as a designer but as a buyer and product development for various companies in Singapore. Through these jobs, he traveled to India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and various countries to source for manufacturers and craftsman to develop furniture and home accessories, learning various production techniques and crafts.
In 1999, Nathan opens a small shop called Air Division , selling his own experimental creations that is made by Asia craftsman and gain both commercial success and critical acclaim in Singapore and overseas. He later further his studies from University of New South Wales, Australia and graduated with distinction in Master in Design.
For two consecutives year; 2006 and 2007, Nathan won the prestigious Red Dot Concept Design Award with a mass production coffin and a portable room heater.
Nathan designs have a distinctive voice, deriving from an emotional thought process that is influenced by its social and cultural of Singapore, finding its roots in childhood experience. His works show a sense of poetical undertones, where it lies in the essence of quietness, which they express; their meditative emptiness, the illusion of nature, technology, the traditional, the craftsmanship in their stark simplicity with a sense of humility and melancholy.
