House numer plates
In a part of Beijing where I live there are a lot of old red brick buildings. They all look pretty much the same, but number plates. Oh, those number plates! It’s amazing how different they could be. Two building next to each other might speak with totally different voices.
One day I spent couple of hours walking few blocks around my house hunting for those plate. Check it out!
Street language
Somewhere in Beijing…
My Chinese Name
Yesterday I was walking down the street and stumbled upon this guy that can write your name in all kind of creative ways, “signature design” he called it. So I decided to give it a shot.
7 kinds of
苗吉龙
Calligraphic Voices
Looking through great graphic novel about Batman “Arkham Asylum”, illustrated by genious Dave McKean, I discovered how beautifully and witty McKean introduces characters of the novel, using creative callighraphy. I think this is especially suitable there because all the characters of the book are so beautifully and frightfully mad, and you can see this in what and how they write.
Weestar
Here goes Chinese graffity and steet art from Beijing designer and illustrator Weestar.
Weestar – 魏星宇
Graphic designer, illustrator, partner of JOYN:VISCOM studio, now he is working and living in Beijing, focusing on the Iconographic, Typeface Design, Toys, Street Art. Specialized in Chinese graffiti typeface design and cooperated with a lot of big names like NIKE, MOTOROLA, ABSOLUT, BENETTON, CONVERSE, TIGER BEER, MOLESKINE, CASIO, EVISU, COCA-COLA etc.
Posters of Amsterdam
One of my favorite places at Flickr is a collection of posters from Amsterdam shared by Jarr Geerligs. This is a fantastic place with hours, megabytes and kilometers of inspiration. Thanks to Jarr Geerligs!
(+ Oslo posters)
GDC 2009 (Shenzhen)
In January I went to Shenzhen and found there an exhibition of GDC, the first global design competition in China, which is held every two years.
Here I share with you photos of some exhibits from there, mostly posters.
Also you can view this materials at my Flickr space.
Ink painting animation
Watch this elaborate Chinese animation, made in traditional ink landscape painting style. Beautiful and calming.
Chinese Type Design Competition
As for me one of the most interesting and inspirational events of this ICOGRADA congress was an exhibition of the best fonts of Chinese Type Design Competition. I’m sure that even people who are not got used to Chinese characters can appreciate the beauty of this fonts and find inspiration there. And I feel that basic rules and principles are the same for Latin and Chinese type design.
To showcase the font designers use chosen poem with all different characters. They do not make all existing characters for the competition. Well, this is not just 26 letters of alphabet and obviously would take one person years and years to design font with thousands of characters. Usually this is a project for a design team.
Exhibition: Beijing Typography 2009
Another interesting exhibition featured by ICOGRADA in Beijing was Beijing Typography Exhibition 2009. It showcases typographic works of international and Chinese designers (mostly posters, but also books, motion, light design etc.) in order to explore aproaches and trends in modern typography and embrase cultural diversity. You can read more about exhebition at Faces of Design. Personally, I discovered many interesting Southern Korean designers. Probably need to do some research on this country’s design.
My Projects
