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Corporate cross-cultural pollination in action

Published

on May 11, 2008

in Art, Commerce, Design, Education, Translation and Travel

. 2 Comments

Was passing by Heathrow and picked up a pamphlet about…

And I checked the website, which said they were co-hosting “over 800 events nationwide spanning art, design, cuisine, culture, science, business, technology, education and sport [that] will capture the imagination and advance the UK public’s understanding of China.”

Their lineup seems pretty impressive, and includes these works:

Above by Chen Shaohua, 1992

Above by Ji Ji, 2006.

There is, in addition, an educational component:

Lastly, they even conjured up a clever marketing ploy: To put paper pigeons in Leicaster Square that act as discount coupons:

For more information, see the HSBC Cultural Exchange website.

Question: Are there similar corporate program(me)s in the US?

Re-usable chopsticks are in?

Published

Jason Li

on May 8, 2008

in Art, Design and Environment

. 0 Comments

This happened several months ago, but I think it’s still worth capturing.

From PFSK:

“While single-use chopsticks may be a convenient option for restaurant owners and patrons alike, there is a small group of Chinese DIY designers and young environmentalists who are taking initiative to counter their use. One such group called ‘Unigreen’ has made an open offer online to hand-stitch a free chopstick / soup spoon holder for anyone who pledges to only carry reusable chopsticks.

Original post on PSFK. More pictures of chopstick bags from Unigreen’s blog.

Featured artist: My Little Dead Dick

Published

Jason Li

on May 2, 2008

in Art and Photos

. 0 Comments

According to a quote from nerve.com on the artists’ website:

“The ecstatically romantic story of Madi Ju and Patrick Tsai (Pat Pat)
tells you everything you need to know about the inspiration behind
their gleeful photography. Taiwanese-American Pat Pat was raised in
California and schooled in New York. Jolted by the Iraq War, he packed
up and moved to Taipei to seriously pursue photography. Three years
later, he met Madi, who lived in China, on the internet. They
rendezvoused in Hong Kong, fell in love, quit their jobs and struck out
on a pan-Asian adventure together…”

And presenting, the photographing duo known as My Little Dead Dick.

http://mylittledeaddick.com

Continue reading ‘Featured artist: My Little Dead Dick’

Maybe-HK crooks plagarize illustrators & bloggers

Published

Jason Li

on April 20, 2008

in Art, Commerce and Design

. 0 Comments

Plagiarized book alert! The offending item is:

Inside: Tons of illustrations used without permission, and texts ripped straight from the Little Chimp Society site.

The offenders are listed as being from Hong Kong (see here for full details), but when the offended parties tried to contact them, they found out that the phone number was for an air filter manufacturer and the ISBN number was faked.

Are they really from Hong Kong then? Probably, but I hope not.

Via Drawn!

Olympic ad of the day (TBWA)

Published

Jason Li

on April 10, 2008

in Art, Commerce, Design and Sports

. 9 Comments

Cool: TBWA’s Olympic ad for Adidas.

Makes sense? I don’t know — yes, there are many people in China and so I’m guessing the theme is something grandiose along the lines of “standing on the shoulder of billions.” But it’s looks a bit like they’re competing somewhere in hell — not my idea of a good brand association. (Would any of my account planning readers like to chime in here?)

Maybe they’re tapping into some sort of macho thing — see my previous post on a GM car ad.

Via the Longyin Review newsletter.

cross-cultural design: Chinese and Australian collaboration

Published

Lyn Jeffery

on March 30, 2008

in Art, Design, Education, Translation and Virtual China

. 2 Comments

This looks like a very cool undertaking. Collabor8 (C8) is an 8 week project that will run from the 28th of April to the 20th of June, bringing together Chinese and Australian designers in a series of online courses and discussions. It’s being put on by the Omnium Research group at the College of Fine Arts. It’s completely free for participants, who should be studying graphic arts in China or Australia. From the website:

Design students from Australia and China will join forces for eight weeks, with project convenors, teachers and special guests worldwide, to work collaboratively within a fully online learning environment.

The aims of C8 include:
• providing design students in Australia and China with the opportunity to work collaboratively on a graphic design problem thereby emulating new trends toward global team-based networks within industry.
• stimulating new ways for designers to work collaboratively across cultural boundaries.
• the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable graphic design for ceramics, textiles, product and environment design.

Hong Kong’s most famous graffiti artist and typographer

Published

Jason Li

on March 27, 2008

in Art, Dating, Meme and Photos

. 1 Comment

Presenting Hong Kong’s most famous graffiti artist and typographer…

KowloonKing2

And it’s true — I do see his work around town, when I am home. Unfortunately, he passed away in July.

See the Chinese Wikipedia entry about him for more details.

Photo taken by Frank Chan. Kudos to bad taste but smell good for reminding me about him.

Though to be fair, someone’s also done this in the US (in San Mateo):

Found at Paul Saffo’s journal.

Featured designer: chocorange

Published

Jason Li

on March 24, 2008

in Art and Design

. 2 Comments

Beijing Olympic architecture reconfigured…

Then the melding of a transformer with iPhone, iPod, alarm clock…

See more from chocorange.

Robot Soccer World Cup China 2008

Published

Jason Li

on March 4, 2008

in Art and Commerce

. 0 Comments

"We are very pleased to announce that 13th FIRA Roboworld Cup China 2008 will take place in Qingdao from 22-25 July, 2008. We would like to invite you to take part in the FIRA Cup and Congress.

13th FIRA RoboWorld Cup China 2008
Date: 22-25 July 2008
Venue: Shinan Software Park, Qingdao China"

From FIRA.net.

(Image from Reuters/China Daily Information Corp .)