Hong Kong PolyU's Poster design

The School of design of Hong Kong Polytechnic University  is one of the best design schools in China. The designs of their own affairs  are also attractive. 

I saw one of their Student Recruitment Poster(2007) , it was a double sided poster that printed in 2 solid colors(orange and silver). One side was "Design is ____." and the other side was the Chinese words means design. The very large font sizes made the words look like graphics.  I removed that poster from the wall and kept it for 2 years...sadly I can not find that poster online. 

Here are some other posters and graphics of Hong Kong polyU, they are typical "Hong Kong polyU style": 2 colors multiplied,  very large size fonts with really small ones, and use fonts as graphics.

The one reason that I love their design is that they use very simple colors to create really beautiful graphic works. 

Some  of their other designs are also very good. here is a image of 2010/11 admission information and a poster of 2008 annual show.

DOWNTOWN APPEARANCE

Some photos I took in downtown last week. I love these buildings, and straight lines. The glass curtain walls reflex the appearance of downtown Los Angeles.

I can not understand "contemporary art"...just feel them interesting.

Some thoughts about poster design

1.My uncle saw my posters yesterday, and he said, a professional designer would not do it in this way. His point is , every city has buildings, skyscrapers, not only los angeles, shanghai has too, so if he does this work, he would not do skyscrapers, but will have some ideas in-depth.

I showed him my first design, and he agree that the  above one is better. Because though the first one looks good, but the image seems abstract, you can not tell what is that at a glance. But after I put another photo on it, you know that they're buildings. I agree with him. 

(first design------->)

2.I think posters should look good, and say something directly. They must look good so that people will be attracted by the image. But people will not spend much time on reading posters, so they have to show the information directly.

3.While I doing a poster design on computer, I feel it really difficult to decide the size of texts. Because poster size is large, there are too many choice in text size, maybe from 8pt to over 500pt...and it does not make any sense when it's on screen. I can not know what it feels like before I print it out. Very difficult to control the composition. I do not know how to solve this problem.

4.Color! Is that blue color can not be printed right? The colors are much more beautiful on screen. It's totally out of control...

On screen it's like this

After printed out, it's like this!!! 

This is a serious problem. I can't show my poster in this color...

These are some thoughts about the poster design. 

Stefan Sagmeister

I can't remember how I know Stefan Sagmeister. The only thing I can remember is I read  some magazines when I was an undergraduate student and his posters is the only thing I can remember after reading. So I became his fan.

In 2008, when I knew the book "Things I have learned in my life so far" was start to sell in his exhibition in New York, I became crazy and then purchased a book through Amazon.com and paid $10 for shipping it to China. And I hate that I can not go to New York to watch that exhibition.

Here is a photo of that book (inside look of the slipcase). I took this photo and feel this book is so beautiful.

Last week I got his another book "made you look". (Free shipping! So glad to come to U.S.A.!) Here are some photos:

 

Can you find the differences between the left and right images?

This is the same with english vocabulary book ...(I don't know if you have that kind of vocabulary book, which the translation of words are printed in red, so you will not see the translation with a red film)

if you put a red transparent Plastic film on a book, white paper turns red,and green will look like black, but you can not recognize the printed red color on that book.It looks like the printed red is disappeared. 

This book has a red plastic slipcase. You can see different dog face with that slipcase. So is the back cover.

This crazy cover image was from one of his Album cover design.

Sagmeister's graphic design made me feel that he is crazy...but really creative. It seems that he will

do anything he can to design the graphics. For example, a very famous piece of his poster, is a photo 

of him,naked, and had the words carved into his skin. (AIGA lecture poster 1999)

Sagmeister's website: http://www.sagmeister.com/index.html

I really love his design and his thoughts. But I can never do graphic design in that way...

3 Hours in Down Town LA

This afternoon, I want to go to MOCA. So I got on a bus to down town LA. I have never been there before.

I was SO bad luck (and stupid)...a rainy day, one hour trip, only to find that both museums were closed on Wednesday...

I had no where to go. so I just kept walking, and have a glance at some place in Down Town.

I passed little tokyo, there are all Japanese there.Then I turned to south at Central Av. After 5 minutes...I found that it feels strange.There is almost no people walking on street, and only fish shops by the road. I want to walk to down town, so I turned right at the 6th St. then I realized that I made a mistake.

I saw all Black people by the street... in about 10 minutes, no other colors on the road, except me...It's so horrible. that district looks so poor, buildings are shabby, roads are dirty...those black people just stand or sit by the road. I kept walking, then some shops appear, and then some white people, and finally I arrived city center. safe.

I like down town, high buildings,glass curtain walls and commercial centers, like any other big cities in the world. But it is really surprise that a such poor area is just a few blocks away from the city center.

After I came back home, I searched that horrible area online, and found that "The corner of 6th and Gladys Street in Downtown" is called Skid Row.

Wikipedia: Skid row

My friends told me that it is really dangerous in some area. I know that's true. But I still appreciate that I have the experience of walking through the skid row. But I haven't took photos. What a pity... I may never dare to go there again.

here is some photos I took today.

Chinese young artists and Jellygen

When I looked at a cyber-friend’s new blog,(she is called popil or quailcat, and is an illustrator currently living   in Shanghai) I found out an exhibition would start in Oct 9^th in Portland and exhibits art works of  young artists, designers and photographers from China. The exhibition is called Jellygen, which means Jelly Generation, the 80’s generation in China. Many young artists and designers in Shanghai were invited to show their works in the exhibition.

A same named exhibition was hold in Shanghai Art Museum in 2007, and MOCATaipei in 2008. The youth born in the 80’s were described by the curator as the Jelly generation, because jelly first came into china in 1980s, and these youth have same features as jelly.

poster of the exhibition in Shanghai,2007

This cyber-friend of mine is a quite young and talented illustrator, her illustrations often appeared in magazines and exhibitions’ posters and have been printed on T-shirt to sell as designer’s Tee. Personally, I like her art works. She always uses a lot of old fashioned graphics and colors in them, and these illustrations have a feeling of 1980’s China. But they are different with any other Chinese styles, it’s her own style. I think that’s why her illustrations became well known.

More information about her and her illustrations: here and here

Another designer who will show her work in the exhibition: here

These young artists and designers show the future of art and design in China. I’m always thinking which kind of graphics means china and is considered as Chinese style. It shouldn’t be a graphic filled with old Chinese patterns. I think this exhibition will show the new styles of China.

The exhibition website   http://www.jellygen.com/

Goldsmith Gallery, NW 5^th& Couch, Portland, Oregon. October 9^th, 2009