Warm winter

ha~~this is a photo taken by using my new DC in IKEA this weekend~this is one from my series called "Red Illusion" for this winter & Christmas~~

Then here is my entry on last Friday~~

Temperature suddenly dropped down last week and everyone needs warmth more than anything in the freezing wind. So I searched some designs that can make people feel warm in winter, from both physical aspect to psychological aspect.

1. Greetings on the toast!

This toaster allows you to write warm sentences on a baked toast. Give your VIPs a big surprise in the morning!

2. Give me a warm hug!

This chair gives you a warm hug even when you are sitting alone! So don't be afraid of coldness and loneliness. At least you have this chair!

3. Furry cup!

This is a Starbucks coffee cup sleeve. Feel warm when holding this cup of hot coffee without hurting your hands, but still feel warm in hands!

4. Stockings for table n chair!

Chairs and tables will also feel warm in cold winter!

5. Warm huge alert!

Don't need to worry about forgetting important things in freezing cold winter morning because you have this huge note to remember things for you!

Here is another story.

On the morning of last Wednesday, on my way to class I saw a very warm and sweet scene. A couple of students were wearing one scarf together in the cold wind. The girl was fully in love when sharing the scarf with her boyfriend.

As long as we feel warm in our heart, we won't feel cold in winter.

It's your big day!

I noticed that these days Google changed its normal icon into Sesame Street characters. I am a big fan of Sesame Street. I watched the Chinese version of the TV show early in my childhood until the show was not longer available in China before I grew up.

Google used to change its icon before on special occasions like Christmas, Valentine's day and other holidays. They are usually beautiful and creative. But seldom there is a series. This time the Sesame Street series really attract me.

The reason is Nov.10 is Sesame Street's 40th birthday! Happy Birthday to my dear Sesame Street! I used to think Sesame Street was over after the TV Show left China and followed by the vanishing of related products. Luckily I had some before Sesame Street left and I love them sooooooooo much!!!

Among this series icons, I appreciate two most: the Cookie Monster and the Big Bird.

The Cookie Monster one use the two round eyes of Cookie Monster to replace the original "o o".

The Big Bird one use the two long and thin leg of Big Bird to replace the original "l".

Both these two remind me of the poster named"She's got to go out to get Woman's Day" from New York School, in which the wheel of the bike the woman is riding are repalced by the two "o"s in "go" and "out".

In nature, they are the same, which I think belong to multi-stability. Both words and pictures exist in the same space at the same time.

Keep searching and prepare for the ancestor presentation.

p.s.: there is something interesting about Nov.11, or say 11.11. In mainland China, people usually call this day "Guang Gun Jie", in English, singles day. Because the outlook of 11.11 is like single man standing, this day has become the day for singles (both woman and man) and originated about 10 years ago from universities. This is humorous and people all say singles should eat fried sticks on that day, which looks like 11. Some pictures are even drawn for this day.

This is one of them.

Ha~~just happy birthday to Sesame Street and happy single day for singles!

check out google icons here: http://www.google.com/logos/index.html

something additional for this week: excerpt from a book.

This is a reflection I got this weekend when preparing for the final next week~~ i do have a visual diary entry for this week just below this post, pls don't forget to look at it!

-------------------------------------------

"Visual Communication of any kind, whether persuasive or informative, from billboards to birth announcements, should be seen as the embodiment of form and function:

the integration of the beautiful and the useful. "

--Paul Rand

I like this embodiment. It suddenly wakes me up from the unclearness about dgc.

People always, always mix dgc and VA as one and dgcers are always mis-recognized as VA students. Our explanations seem to be useless, because usually even ourselves cannot clearly define our major.There is also a joke said that you cannot understand what you have learned even after you graduate. It is a sad story. For both dgc and VA.

And something strange happened this evening and I seem to figure out something. VA can ignore the environment, or say just focus on expressing the artist's own feeling, but dgc cannot. We need to create beautiful things to tie people together. It is the integration of the beautiful and the useful. And that is also why we belong to school of communication and need to take comm1160. ><

Hope didn't offend any VA students.

haha~~found an "ancestor" just before the ancestor presentation!

Helena and I had a wonderful Thursday! We went to Adobe Photoshop World 2009 at Hong Kong Exhibition Center. This event was a lecture given by a photoshop master Russell Brown on introducing Photoshop CS 4 and he also gave the audience a lot of tips when using CS4. Another lecturer was Michael Stoddart, who is a graphic designer focusing on 3D animation creations. He showed the audience how to make VIDEOS in PHOTOSHOP CS4!!! yes! That's true! CS4 even includes video making and 3D creating!

Though I am still using Photoshop CS3 at a very beginning, I was still very impressed by the two lecturers. Russell Brown is extremely humors and loves making jokes about Americans (But he is from New Zealand!). Michael Stoddart is rather shy compared to Russell but his skill of making a short video in a few minutes is very attractive.

What I found interesting was the promotion poster for this event. On the poster there are some hands holding the PS icon in hand and approaching to somewhere far. I am sure this design has an ancestor and I know its ancestor is the one showing below.

Those posters during the Cultural Revolution in China. People are holding Chairman Mao's Red Book in hand.

During that period of time, Chairman Mao actually had created a kind of self-worship. He wanted and in fact had made people worship him. So people at that time would rather abandon anything including academic and farming to "study" the red book. After searching and including what we have seen in class, I have already formed an idea that during those years there were a lot of posters like the above one. All were expressing an idea that the people respect and love Chairman Mao and they hold the red book firmly to show their royalty to Mao. And now Adobe adopted this ancestor as its promotion idea. I couldn't help thinking about the reasons. First, Adobe thought this gesture can give people a visual shock. Second, Adobe wanted its PS users to always follow them just like the royal people during that time in China.

Apart form the political issues, I actually do love this Adobe's design. It's simple but strong. It communicates ideas very clearly. It contains both Adobe's confidence in having a large group of PS users and its hope to have more in the future.

It was a great day today. And I am very happy to have found an "ancestor" and have written it in my blog to get some warm up exercise for the real presentation.

once a HP fan, always a HP fan~~

I have been a Harry Potter fan since I was in the fourth grade in primary school and until now I am still crazy about this series. I have done something crazy, such like reading the first volume for 16 times, the fourth volume for 6 times, copying down all the curses in a notebook, using dark green color pens, imaging every one of my friends are someone in the novel, getting a poster from the cinema when the movie was offline, buying tapes rather than CDs (when tapes are still quite popular more than nearly 10 years ago...) at that time ... I have pursued nearly every thing about HP, of course including the movie.

The movie is a great success, at least its box office, though the movie series will never be as good as the novel in a huge HP fan's heart. However, if we exclude the plot of the movie and simply view its technics and soundtrack, it is still marvelous! The first two movies have left the deepest impression on me. The first one: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, the great composer John Williams created the famous and widely accepted OST for HP. In the second movie, the digital magic on creating the elf Dobby made the scene real and live and has become a milestone in my heart at that age. I have found some videos on Youtube to recall my sweet memories in HP.

The first one is the trailer of the first movie. The second one is the scene when Dobby is freed by Harry who has cheated Malfoy by giving Dobby his own sock.

However, I must say the sixth HP movie was terrible. The length limitation was a huge cause of the incoherency of the movie. Actually I think it's better to read books rather than watching movies after the fourth volume.

But Harry Potter has created a world for me. This is the real magic.

Games with characters

We are playing games with fonts in DGC 1180 these days and this reminds of an old game I used to play when I was little with my grandparents.

This is a game to be played with Chinese characters. There is a children's song along with this game. The rule is simple. You just draw what the lyrics tell you to do. And when the song is over, a picture of an old man will appear in front of you.

The steps in the song are like this:

1. There was an old man whose family name is DING.

Then you can have the nose of this old man. (The Chinese character of DING is: 丁)

2. He got two cute grandsons.

The grandsons are fat and cute so the eyes of the old man can be replaced by two circles resembling the two grandsons.

3. He didn't eat for three days.

Here three lines appear on his forehead like three wrinkles.

4. And he was hungry and turned around.

The round head comes.

5. He bought three scallions.

His three hairs.

6. He used 3.3 dollars.

3 is just like the shape of his ears.

7. He bought a piece of cake for four dollars.

The Chinese character of four:四 is his mouth.

8. He bought a big melon.

It's his body!

9. He used 6.6 dollars.

Make his has the same way like ears.

10. He also bought some little cakes.

These are his buttons on his clothes.

11. He bought these for 9.9 dollars.

Also working in the same way as ears.

Then a picture of an old man appears as long as you follow the simple instructions!

This game is classic at least in my hometown and now when I am approaching to design, these old things just remind me of the fact that design is not only designed by professional designers. Everyone can design and there is really nothing new under the sun.

Hope you enjoy this little game.

The Chinese version of the song is listed below.

从前有个丁老头（眉毛和鼻子），

他有两个乖孙儿（眼睛），

三天不吃饭（额头皱纹），

饿得团团转（脑袋），

买了三根葱（头发），

用了三毛三（耳朵），

买个小方饼花了四毛钱（嘴），

买个大冬瓜（身子），

用了六毛六（两只手），

买串油果子（纽扣），

用了九毛九（两只脚）。

Le Chat Noir

I was quite surprised last class when I saw this cat poster shown because I bought a copy of this in Florence this summer and I wouldn't have thought this poster has so many things to say. At fisrt when I bought the copy I just thought it was prettier than other pictures there. However I always want to know the story behind this poster.


I have searched some information about this cat. First I found out that the word Le Chat Noir represents a kind of entertainment in late 19 century in France welcomed by a group of artists, especially Picasso. However this didn't exist for a long time. It was a shame for both Paris and the cultural field I think because Le Chat Noir represented a trend to move forward and develop. I have also read some articles in memory of those days. I guess it was a time for new things to emerge but was killed at last.

Then I found out the author of this poster, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, was also inspired in Le Chat Noir, a cafe shop related to this trend and entertainment in Paris. I always like those coffee shops in Europe, where are not only a place to eat and drink, but also for people to exchage ideas and communicate whatever they like. Culture occured there, and we know something like this cannot happen in a busy and stressful life.

A Hand Job

First I must say after having an approach to typography, I start to worry about my visual lexicon. I guess the typography inside there may be all wrong because I wrote everything inside rather than print them. And I don't really know what to do to save it because it is already done.

Here comes what I have discovered in typography.

A CATALOG OF TYPE. HAND JOB.

I borrowed this book from the library accidenly and after the class it came to my mind. The author of this book names Michael Perry. He does typography design by hand. Poeple all say that "in this digital age of computer-generated graphics and typography, it is refreshing to see a small subtle of typograqphy who still believe in working by hand". In his book, there are various beautiful typograohys made by hand. Here are some photos.

He made letters into different shapes. I like this H very much because it looks like a dinosaur.

And his design are very detailed with patterns or lines.

However, I think his work is just for fun or in other words, his designs are all decorative typography are cannot be always applied to no matter formal or informal texts. And these designs more tend to be beautiful drawings rather than typography, though the author itself called it so.

It is indeed refreshing to see these designs because they are more vivid and colorful. But I still think we should in some way make it more useful.

When Culture Meets Design

We talked about culture and communication design in today's class. When it came to CULTURE, this picture sudenly came into my mind. This was a photo I took last weekend in a restaurant in Langham Place for my visual lexicon. I think there are a lot of things can be discussed in this advertisenment.

In this advertisement, the orange color slogan reads:"Let's go to eat SOFT RICE!!!" And below the main slogan are the penguins crying out the names of different kinds of SOFT RICE offered in that restaurant.(including the one with beef, with crab and with shells.) SOFT RICE is the thing this restaurant wants to promote. I didn't try this rice that day. So I guess this rice must have been cooked very soft in some particular way.

The shining point is the phrase "EAT SOFT RICE". This phrase in mandarin is spoken as "chi ruan fan" . This is a very negative phrase to describe those kind of a man who live on a woman and doesn't earn a life by himself and also has a weak character acting like a coward in life. It is originally from Shnaghai dialect and now has spreaded widely over China. Rather than its apparent meaning, this phrase has also been furthered to describe those kind of man who get a promotion by doing something unethical with his woman boss, such like this.

I guess whether the designer of this ad really know the meaning of this phrase. In one hand, I guess he / she knew this meaning and want to use this joking way to attract customers, just like the toilet restaurant in Mongkok. People nowadays are crazy about "not good things" and the designer are using this point attarcting customers. On the other hand, the designer doesn't know this meaning and the reason why using this slogan is just because he/she has heard about it but didn't do the research. If this is the situation, I think then CULTURE is vital here. Becuase this slogan will create an ironic impact on thepromotion. Maybe it will annoy its customers, and the restaurant will lose business.

One more thing, the designer should also know whether HK people know the meaning of this phrase. If this slogan is not known widely by HK people, then this slogan won't work out, no matter in the positive promoting way or in the nrgative ironic way.

So knowing a certian culture is very improtant if we are going to use this culture as part of our design. And what I don't understand in this poster is that, why the designer is using penguins to promote? I don't think the penguin is the symbol of this restaurant.

Try to think more...

A promotion poster for PHOTOSHOP CS4

Though we are living in a world full of new high technologies, if sometimes we go back to nature and illustrate things as simple as it is originated to be, I believe it will give our life a big surprise and impress a lot of audience.

The picture above I found out on the Internet is the newly published promotion poster designed by Bates 141, Jakarta for Photoshop CS 4. The format is exactly the outlook of photoshop. However they used real materials to replace those electronic icons on the screen according to exact sizes and then they took a picture of it as their promotion for CS 4. That is, this picture was not made by computer. It is a real photo taken by people. I must say I was surprised and impressed when I first looked at this poster.

What I want to express is that, we are using more and more computer to design nowadays and as a DGC student, we cannot avoid conputer either. But in my opinion what appears on the screen actually all generates from our daily life and the real world. We get idaes from what we see from our maybe simple surroundings and these simple images gives us new ideas to create and design the more complex images on the computer.
Complexity all comes from simplicity. This is what I believe when people design.

I guess what I think about today also has something to do with "PRAGNANZ". Sometimes simple things can express much more than complicated figures. They go back to nature and give audience space to think more.

Miserable Wednesday

I guess it was because I was too happy on Tuesday that made me had such an miserable and damn Wednesday.

I forgot to bring the umbrella with me the THIRD time and it soon began to rain cats and dogs after I got out of the dorm. I ran to the library, on one hand, intending to print the notes about the presention in DGC class. On the other hand, I had no choice but to wait for H to pick me up, otherwise I would definitely be late for the class or even worse, trapped in the freezing library wet and cold until the rain stopped. Thanks to H. This was the second time she helped me get out of the damn rain this week. But I didn't know at that time she would help me for a third time later.

Three hours passed quite quickly because we had presentation this week. During the presention some students got out of the classroom and came back without umbrella. I thought it was great that finally the rain has stopped. But when the class was over, it began to rain heavily again! I was frustrated to see this situatuon. At this time H gave me her umbrella because her following classes are all in the same building. With H's umbrella I managed to go back to the hall and get my own umbrella during the one hour break at noon.

At that night I was reading a picture album. The whole book was just so so but there was one picture which caught my I and made me moved.



The picture says, a friend is the best gift for yourself.

Once more, great thanks to H!

ps: It didn't rain any more after I got my own umbrella, not only that afternoon, the following days as well.

Communication design is a SCIENCE!

I never knew that design could and should be so scientific until Mr. Williams showed us some amazing examples of communication design on this week's class. The most inspiring one, of course, was the Northwest Airline logo. When I first looked at this logo, it seemed no big difference between other logos we see in our daily life. The blank stroke in the red part created a W and an N in one letter. This kind of design is quite normal these days because I have seen other designs in which this kind of creativity is applied.(But now I cannot think of the example I have seen. I'll put them on as soon as they came up to my mind.) However, what makes Northwest Airline's logo stand out is the little arrow cut by the blank stroke. Before Mr. Williams explained this point, I seldom paid attention to this little part. But afterwards the explanation of the little arrow enlightened me! How wise of the designer to have come up with this idea!

After having seen these amazing designs, I start to think about how to be a GOOD communication designer. GOOD, as for me, means that at first a designer must be a good observer. A designer must be sensitive to the environment around him/her. He/She must pay attention to not only commen things but also pay attention to details of surroundings. Only when a designer is aware of these details and have patient to work on them can he/she understand the symbolic meaning of a certain design. A designer should discover more than other people can see from a design much much more than its physical meaning. Then a designer should, of course, be creative. However creativity may not always born to a designer. So a designer should have a widely access to everything from photos to movies, from music to travlling. These elements I believe can all inspire a designer to create. Thirdly, I think that a designer should also be a scientist of life. Because what we are discussing here is COMMUNICATION DESIGN. It's different from pure art for that communication design must convey some meanings to people, in other word, these designs must reach to people's life in some certain ways. This can be explained as a interior designer should understand to usage of equipments in one's household and could not make designs cannot be used by people. Being a communication designer is great. A comuunication designer is not lonely. When a design is accepted and applaused by people, I guess a designer will be happy with satisfaction.

After the assignment of the Grail was assigned, I suddenly came up with this picture below. I saw this poster at a bus stop. It says "Pets are for life. Think before you have one". The letter T in "PETs" is replaced by a human hand whose gesture is just like the letter T. And below this slogan there are six cute animals who are doing the same thing like the human hand. This picture is created to be warm and considerate. And in my opinion, the target audience of this poster should be the young and the old, and as well as the one with great care of animals. Because the eyes of these animals in the picture are pure and innocent, which express that what they need is just care and love. This information can easily draw attention of little children and old people. And for those who have great care for animals, this poster can make them work for animal care and then can draw more people's attention to this point in order to make people all around to care for pets. I think this is a good creative idea and I hope that I have analysed it correctly.

Now I start to feel it's interesting to study DGC. It will a great satisfaction if I can make people happy through my designs one day!

School Starts & Gate to DGC

《We Start Here》
Believe it or not, ASH 600 is one of the most difficult venues to be found out on this campus. But I was lucky to make it because Helena had lessons there before and I have orchestra rehearsal every week just one floor over this room. September 2 was the first day of school, and for Helena and me, this was also our first day to be a REAL DGC student. Helena and I are the only two mainland DGC students this year, and we used to be quite nervous before about having lessons with HK local students. But to our surprise, we were happy to find out what inside this room was something we could call it multiculture. The professor was nice and humorous, and from the "interesting story" told by classmates, I found them interesting and ambitious. But what both Helena and I realized afterwards was that our classmates didn't seem to have much talk with each other very often. Maybe we are just not very familiar with each other. But I believe there will be one day that we can mingle easily!

《Dried Leaves》

Aactually I found out this strange phenomenon last year. When it's time for trees to grow and flowers to bloom in theory, some leaves in HK start to become yellow and even kraurosis. I haven't found out the reasons yet. This picture was taken this morning when I went up the slope. The contrast FRESH and DRIED, GREEN and YELLOW was absolute and shocking. So I took this picture and posted it here. And, I am looking forward to the next week. See u.