Archive for the 'Design' Category

Corporate cross-cultural pollination in action

Published
by
Jason Li
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
by
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.

Maybe-HK crooks plagarize illustrators & bloggers

Published
by
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
by
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
by
Lyn Jeffery
on March 30, 2008
in Art, Design, Education, Translation and Virtual China
. 2 Comments

collabor8.png

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.

Featured designer: chocorange

Published
by
Jason Li
on March 24, 2008
in Art and Design
. 2 Comments

Beijing Olympic architecture reconfigured…

Chocorangebeijing

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

Chocorangetechmag

See more from chocorange.

Sabrina’s Beer Chicken recipe-diagram

Published
by
Jason Li
on February 13, 2008
in Art, Design and Food and Drink
. 4 Comments

Fun finding of the day — a recipe-diagram for cooking chicken with beer! (Rough translations given in maroon.)

Sabrinabeerchicken

Go to original post (currently down) or photo on Yupoo.

Via Global Voices Online’s Memedia translation (an old issue). Thank you tian for fixing my translation.

张小盒 (Boxy Zhang) wishes you a Happy Chinese New Year!

Published
by
Jason Li
on February 7, 2008
in Art and Design
. 0 Comments

Happy Chinese New Year!

P.S. I really like this set of characters from 张小盒 (Boxy Zhang), but…

They do resemble these guys from Japan alot…

Tofuoyako

LiLei and Han MeiMei

Published
by
Jason Li
on January 16, 2008
in Art, Design and Meme
. 1 Comment

Lileihanmei2

LiLei and Han MeiMei were the two main characters from a series of middle-school English textbooks used by Mainland Chinese students in the early 80s. I’ve unearthed a small wave of nostalgia about them online, including speculations on their love triangle with Englishman Jim Green and an annotated cast of characters.

Then some artists converted retro nostalgia into modern art, kitsch and a roadshow:

Lileihanmei1

Lileihanmei3

Interestingly enough, they also gave named them  李磊 and 韩美美 as they described in one of their first blog posts:

"他们没有中文名，我就先这样叫他们。试试看反响如何？大家有新意见么？ (They don’t have Chinese names, let’s call them this for now and see what the reaction is? What do you think?)"

Via Bigik.cn.

An ad man explores China

Published
by
Jason Li
on December 31, 2007
in Blogs, Commerce and Design
. 2 Comments

I recently discovered Charles Frith’s blog, Punk Planning, which details his journeys through China as a planner from the advertising world.

(FYI: In the advertising world, the planner is the bridge between the consumers and the writers/producers. They’re typically the ones running focus groups and interviews, and are responsible for crafting creative briefs to capture the essence of the consumers’ viewpoints.)

The writing in the blog is a little bit too rambly for my personal taste, but there are frequent gems, such as:

  • These beautiful porcelain cups. (Original post.)

    Porzellan5
    UPDATE: David Pescovitz over at Boing Boing has discovered that the artist responsible for these is Lei Xue, a Germany-based artist from China.

  • An interesting post about his visit to the Tier 4 city of Ba Zhou, read entire post here. Highlights within include:

    - Polythene sheet insulated windows… with a Snoopy decoration hanging in the middle of it.

    Insulatedwindows

    - Coal fired oven (I really have a thing for kitchens).

    Coalfiredoven

    - The outdoor fridge.

    Lettucefridge

Check out Charles Frith’s blog — Punk Planning.