Blogg’d Dudesign

按：这篇文章曾被翻译成法语后发表在法国设计期刊 Etapes（”艺态”）的2007年11月刊上，由于博客很久没有更新，所以故计重施，再来灌水一次。英文原文由本人撰写。感谢Amy Gendler为此文进行的修改校对。

This article was translated and published in the French design magazine Etapes’ 2007 December issue. Again, for the blog to appear alive, it comes to rescue the embarrassment of no update for … months? Thanks to Amy Gendler for proofreading and editing.

—
The year 2008 will welcome the first Olympic games in the capital of the ‘Middle Kingdom’; the ancient tradition of the Greeks comes to another culture that is as old as theirs. Some decades ago, it would have sounded uncanny to have the Olympics in China, or even up to this moment, but the world is striding faster than we are comfortable with. Cultures mix and clash in this era of globalism in a way that no country can be immune to. When we take a look at what China has to offer to visualize the identity and spirit of the Olympic games, people will be confronted with a very different but totally fresh approach.

Unlike its neighbour Japan, host to the 1964 Olympics and a country that happily embraced incoming cultural and artistic influences, China often seems trapped in a certain struggle, between its rich and lasting traditions and the powerful Western influences. To the progressive minds, those rich old traditions have also been the shackles that have kept the nation from assimilating positive cultural influences from the rest of the world. Nevertheless, when it comes to national level design projects, the ‘traditions’ almost always play the upper hand and become quite distinct. And clearly the designs of Beijing Olympics are also saturated with the traditional Chinese identity.

These designs are met with ambivalent responses from local designers and general populace. The Beijing Olympic emblem, named ‘China Seal’, by a design consultancy in Beijing, is widely criticized for being overly archaic and derivative without proper contemporary modification, lacks a modern spirit and somewhat evokes unpleasant feelings, whereas the design of medals and pictograms could be predicted as epochal designs in the entire history of Olympic games. Good or bad, in all the designs, a certain sense of Chineseness can be easily detected.

The design of the medals was developed initially on a concept of Xiao Yong, a graphic design professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, and his student team. The concept was further developed and realized by joining forces with other members of the design team from CAFA, including Wang Yi-peng, also design professor at CAFA, who experimented extensively to find out different possibilities of how the design could be realized. Jade in ancient China is a symbol of purity, virtue and nobility. When juxtaposed with the three kinds of metals (bronze, silver and gold), it creates a boldly fresh image, giving new meaning to the medals. Integrated with the valuable stones, these medals might also become the most exquisite and ‘precious’ ones in the Olympics history.

The design of pictograms for Beijing 2008 Olympics would seem to be one of the most original sets of design in the history of modern Olympic games. The graphics are clearly inspired by ancient Chinese oracle bone inscriptions, and Zhuan script (seal characters) which was the form of writing modeled on the oracle bones. With the aid of digital illustration software, the spirit and shape of the original script are successfully maintained and transformed into contemporary streamlined shapes. Simplicity and conciseness are accomplished with steady yet dynamic ‘flowing’ strokes. The realization is contemporary while still keeping a proper sense of history. It even somehow recalls the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt to those not familiar with Chinese characters. Simple and streamlined shapes also facilitate the application in various design and production situations. The set would be pleasing to the eyes of both modernists and the tradition-minded.

Professor Hang Hai, one of the key figures responsible for the design of pictograms and some other discrete projects of the Olympic games, has been overseeing the concept development and realization of the pictograms design project. Hang, showing a confident sense of humor introducing the concepts behind the pictograms, thinks that the pictographic symbols, introduced by Otl Aicher in 1972 Munich Olympics, could be perfectly interpreted as ancient Chinese characters with pictographic origins. A wonderful example of this is the symbol for the equestrian games where the Zhuan character ‘man’ is mounted on the Zhuan character ‘horse’ to form a meaningful composition. These two pictographic systems meet and overlap, the result of which could be appreciated by all audiences. The overlapping of the concepts is rendered even more interesting with the flawless illustration.

Mascots of the Beijing Olympic games, created by a renowned Chinese fine artist, are viewed by many in China as being somewhat unsophisticated, and also missing the qualities of abstraction and economy that are typical of contemporary design. Panda, kites, fish, swallow, and Tibetan antelope, holding hands, become the biggest team of mascots in the Olympic history. These figures would live successfully on traditional medium, such as rice paper and so forth. But when they are to be applied to modern printing and display mediums, the realization is not likely to match the contemporary environment.

It is unique in the history of modern Olympics that the design of the Beijing Olympic games is largely supported by CAFA, one of the top (graphic) design schools in the country. Academic involvement in national projects is a sort of tradition in socialist China, where institutional elites collaborate on projects of political, cultural significance. This mode was successful in the structure of political propaganda, and is now applied to the design project of Beijing Olympics. As perhaps the most forward-thinking school of design in China, CAFA has created stunning and appropriate designs for the Beijing Olympic games. It is also remarkable that most of the designs are collaborated by a huge team consisting of teachers and students from Central Academy of Fine Arts. Professor Wang Min, Dean of School of Design at CAFA, who also leads the CAFA Olympic design team, emphasizes that the projects are completed with the collective efforts of students and teachers at CAFA, and it’s really the teamwork that makes the projects possible.

It’s interesting to observe that while design for the Olympics is at its highest, the Chinese design community is receiving considerable international attention. Not to mention the European and American forces in architecture, that claim various avant-garde architectural experiments in China’s cities, in graphic design, AGI, AIGA, and Icograda, the most high-profile design organizations have all consideredexpanding their influence in the country. These positive forces can bring information and inspiration, providing valuable experience to the leaders of the design community.

AIGA, the professional association for design in the USA, set up its China office in Beijing last winter, with intentions of promoting design education and creating a platform on which the design worlds of the two countries can exchange information, achieve common understanding and inform and inspire each other. Amy Gendler, director of the China office, has also taken on a teaching job in CAFA to promote the understanding and application of typography in cross-cultural contexts.

Icograda, the international council of graphic design associations,held a ceremony at the end of 2006 setting up a preparatory committee for its biennial Congress, which will take place in Beijing in 2009. In February this year, Icograda’s board member Jacques Lange arrived in Beijing to give a speech at a major national conference on creative industry. Lange said China does not yet have effective professional design associations that are very mature and influential, and that Icograda aims to promote these practices and to strengthen the exchange in design between China and other parts of the world.

These activities in a way mark the increasing importance of Chinese design, or at least the significance of it in the world. With the frequent exchange of professional knowledge and practice, it seems a new set of design aesthetics and methodologies is becoming possible in China together with the realization of such major archetypical design projects as the design for the Olympic games. A huge variety of influences and references are gearing toward the emergence of a new Chinese design.

At the presence of the Olympic games designs, and the booming of Chinese design in general, can we confidently predict more creative output from the ‘world’s factory’ that produces excessive amount of goods seldom with an edge in design and technological innovation? The answer tends to be quite optimistic. But with a culture that is itself a sophisticated system, blessed and burdened by its long history, can China successfully incorporate the Western modernist spirit? One would be curious to witness this in the decades to come.