稱名
- Léo CHARLES -
What is the meaning of graphic Design in China ?
ABSTRACT
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M
ore than Design itself, I wonder what animates designers. In this perspective, my essay is an introspection of a designer’s life in China where I met different protagonists and reach singular points of view. I leaned on these experiences in order to build my appreciation on the practice of Design in the far East. However my purpose here is not to settle a ‘Chinese way of Design’. My work was to raise the issues and opportunities that a Graphic Designer will encounter. I worried about the position and views of this Designers regarding their work in China more than trying to find a specificity that will define them as ‘Chinese’ designers. I wondered : what is the singularity of China which the Graphic Designers have to deal with ? And my question lead me to an understanding of a civilisation that conceive the term of Design in a different way, with different tools. The Manifesto “First things First”(1) is an exemple of this reflexion on the purpose of Design in the West. In the same quest of giving it a purpose, to literally capture its essence, I tried in this essay to give the right meaning to Design in China.
Key words : China, graphic design, symbolism, thinking process, cultural identity, calligraphy, meditation, emblems, culture, harmony, virtue, elegance.
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INTRODUTION
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W
hile I am approaching my master degree, I remain uncertain of the definition of my work. Practicing Graphic Design in these five years felt like gazing at a galaxy, trying to understand it with an empirical logic. And more than developing skills in Graphic Design, I felt the urge to question and define my field of study. Maybe it sounds a little naive and let the impression that I studied design as well as a moth in the dark night. In reality I don’t know if a single of us had a better idea on this matter at this time. Graphical communication is not something you study in high school. But living in a developed and industrialised country, you can’t really avoid to be influenced by it. In order to have a better image of the universe of « Design », I decided to write this essay as a dialogue between different protagonist and answer them back. In this way I would be able to keep a certain objectivity and built a point of view that lean on professional or experienced profil. Anyway, I also wanted my answers and reflexion to be drove by a logic, or at least a discipline in order to discover what was going on these designers’ minds. So I developed a logical and empirical reasoning based on these concepts :
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- Objectivity : there is nothing quite like a unique definition of design that could reasonably cover the whole discipline of Graphic Design. Because of its diversity and rapid mutation, Graphic Design should be analysed as a multitude of random wanderers with the same path, yet different journeys; like individuals gathering under a same set of code and practices which are defined and modified by themselves. In order to have an objective appreciation of design, you should define a common base which should not be exclusive. Design is a tool. Its practice define its purpose. - Cultural behaviour : choice of the words and interpretation of pictures are individual matters. Being aware that communication use media that leave room for self-interpretation make you realise that Graphic Design is shaped by both the society and the people that compose it. If we can recognise that their is cultural common expressions, designers are not their holders. Graphical variations across different culture should not be seen as specified set of rules, but as many way that enable you to auto-criticise and build yourself as a designer. Numerous cultures are however many possibilities for Designers. Culture is not a closed subject that defined someone under its influence. It is a filter whereby designers defined and improve their skills.
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- Philosophy : A designer does not only answer to the supply and demand. Our work involve a degree of responsibility equal to its implication in society. Practicing design with the only purpose of making money or creating pure aesthetic, regardless of the problematic, is nonsens and irresponsable. Design should be practiced and judged by its contribution to the society and not for the promotion of individual intentions. Self restraint and discipline in your work may not make you a successful designer, but will definitely make you a good one. Choosing to devote yourself to a certain philosophy will not only make you appear as a designer with a strong identity but will also justify your design positioning. - Relativity : accepting that design is not an essential discipline for the world let you wonder about its real purpose. Design is a sector of human activity that designed itself. Considering human primary needs, design is not a core matter of a society. Thinking that design got an answer for everything is similar to wait for gods to hunt down our supper. Big social changes and crisis are not the result of design. Design enhance or degrade human behaviour but is not responsable for it. Only its user. If you care for being a good designer, be a good human. Relatively speaking you have more chance to be good at both.
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A
s a French graphic design student in China, I place myself as an observer but also as an actor among designers’ that worry about our place in the production process. I consider that my role is to balance the supply and demand between society’s need and the client wish for its product through the promotion and development of culture. This issue appears in the same time as the Chinese cultural identity has been challenged by the globalisation during the 20th century and will still be challenged until China overtake it. I also realise that the struggle we deal with in western society are really different than in China. In fact, Chinese civilisation didn’t react and shape itself to the concept of market thanks to/because of its own culture specificities. This is why before I got the legitimacy to present my outlook on the subject, I had the duty to define what does the concept of graphic Design mean inside China’s culture. One of my first preoccupation, that I think a lot of my peers from the West side shared with me, is this idea of taste that seem radically different here in China. How many time I heard « How can they appreciate such a colours ? » or even more « This is so kitsch ! », « It would never been appreciated in my country ». This feeling from my colleagues get so deep in my mind that I have to admit, that I sometime meet their judgement on China as a country who doesn’t have the « culture » for graphic design, or the taste for « universal » beauty. Well I quickly shake these ideas out of
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my head as I wandered in Shanghai’s art museum. The fact is this gap between our different point of view on the matter comes from our difference of appreciation : we didn’t shape our idea of beauty the same way and we didn’t set our communication code the same way, obviously. In the same time, I constantly kept in mind that the role of a western designer in China was not to give the final answer to what should be the place and the role of graphic designers in China, either they are Chinese or foreigners. I always saw myself as an outsider that should fit into a movement of an other culture. The fact that I came from a culture that have first define a concept of Design, as we know it today, has never let me think that Chinese society should adapt itself to this concept. In contrary, I tried to identify how the concept of graphic design, as we know it, fit into Chinese society and how Chinese graphic designers want to define it. Moreover, to be fair, saying that design has been defined totally by westerner or is a Western discipline is simply wrong. When I said we first defined a concept of Design, I meant that we were the first to develop in such a scale the work and definition of Design. Design is an universal practice that has been shaped over the time and civilisations. But for the sake of this essay I am currently talking of Design as the common definition that is mostly shared by most of the people nowadays and how it is learned in schools in general.
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This is the thinking process that I applied all along my study on Graphic Designers in China’s society. I have gathered strong ideas around the subject and forged myself a singular point of view that would lead me through my career. But before beginning this new journey in the realm
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of design. I would like to share the one I had regarding being a graphic designer student in China.
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PART ONE
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Graphic Design and Calligraphy
Lok Ng, Emperor Huang Di â–¼
The notion of « 稱名 » (Cheng Ming)
C
hina has always been carried by the idea of unification. Chinese as a writing system is by far the most emblematic and powerful exemple of this unification. Where War and walls never succeed in keeping peace, words have been the catalyser through which the country achieved a common harmony and political philosophy that will raise and make it stand. As a result, Chinese culture is carried by the wish to give the right nomination for emblems as it is the guarantor of peace. The significance of words and the utilisation of it differs in many way from the use of Latin words and letters. More than a classification of definitions under different symbols, Chinese words work as a language of action : you pronounce a word to invoke its essence. More than being a code shared by everyone to be understand, they are, in the Chinese civilisation, a classification of the world in order to rule it and bend it to your will. I wrote this essay constantly keeping in mind the concept of « 稱名 » (ChengMing), literally the fact to give back - the right meaning to a graphical symbol in the Chinese language. In Chinese mythology it is said that one of the minister of the first Emperor of China, the Yellow Emperor 黄帝 (HuangDi), was the first to established a common language
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among all the Chinese people. So by capturing the essence of an object into glyphs, human will have control over it(2) : « The first task of a chief is to provide for the men the emblems that allow them to domesticate the Nature, because they define, for every human being, its personality and its place and rank in the World. […] ‘Make the correct designation’ (‘稱名’) is in fact the first governmental obligation. » - Marcel Granet
The history and custom of calligraphy made it a discipline among the gods. It was the message of the Emperor to organised and rule the world. Through the scholar, philosophy, lows and precepts were broadcasted in China. Writing as always been the symbol and the tool used between the sky (the Emperor wish) and the earth (the issue of society) to communicate and balance each other. « The Prince has the mission to bring order in every things and every actions : he adjusts the action according to the matter. […] Every vicious appellations in the language or the writing expose an insufficiency in the sovereign’s Virtue. »
- Marcel Granet
The purpose of a communication process such as languages is to unify people or devices under a same code. Human is a social animal. Their communication relies on similar cultural practices and custom. Therefor, Graphic Design should
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be oriented to other people’s needs. A selfish practice will be similar to talking to yourself and hoping others to understand and work with you. When you use meaningful graphic emblem you use them as they rely on the comprehension of the others. A designer as he develop its own graphical language should always rely on a common base shared by the society. Being an innovative designer doesn’t mean to be vague or not understandable one. Even being a visionary designer that won’t be appreciated for its true value until decades will work according to the codes and precept of its time. But in a way it is useless for a designer in our societies to provide such a work. I would personally see his place outside it, but we will go back to this point later. Marcel Granet describes the variations of the statut of death in the Chinese language to stress this relation between words and its value towards the society : « By the effect of a single words, you dealt with the fate of the dead, fixed its destiny in the after life, rated its family, unless you disqualify yourself, unable to have a valuable judgement - because the power of an emblem turns up to be against the one who wrongly designate it. »
- Marcel Granet
If words are settled to apprehend the world and exchange ideas about it, they have to remain precisely defined, yet constantly evolving. A rational way of practicing design would be to consider its process
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solid and sustainable, when its applications remain in perpetual progress. If we have firstly seen that words are meant to be settle for the use of everyone, they also act as a tool for them to re-shape reality over time. If Marcel tend to explain to us that words have to be used with precaution, they are also subject to an perpetual mutation. Not that they will change everyday but that they are undoubtedly subject to sensible change over the time and area. This philosophy of communication has, in my point of view, its paroxysm in calligraphy. The relation between words and calligrapher is nearly meditative at this point. Calligraphy reach the abstract representation of thoughts. Since then, new ideas about aesthetics came from the confrontation of calligraphy and its representation in nature : Two calligraphers could write two completely different things while writing the same word. when painting a landscape, you capture the felling produced by such a view into complexe aggregation of forms and color that will share a unique point of view. The Painters’ aim is to evoke the unique impression he felt about nature in a singular and graphical expression. He offers its interpretation of reality through a window opened to his mind. When practicing calligraphy, you condense these impressions of reality into an abstract representation that digest it. Calligraphy
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is an oversimplification of nature through emblematic yet abstract graphical expression. The Calligrapher designed the key that open the painters’ window. While the idea of what a tree looks like can change numerous time in your life, the core idea of a tree will remain still. Calligraphy is the art to draw the essence of nature. At the end, more than a convenient and effective way to communicate, Calligraphy in China has always carried the wish to enhance the human by giving him a tool to raise its mind and comprehension of the world. Through its model of representation of reality, calligraphy has been a crucial tool, if not the ultimate one, in the construction of Chinese culture. Despite everything, these secular knowledges were not able to come to light in the design field. Pan JianFeng wonders (3) : « Today, on many occasions if international exchange, Chinese designers encounter the problem : ‘where is the root of Chinese design ?’. Regarding graphic design, my answer is undoubtedly the Chinese character. We have endlessly interpreted this writing system from political, artistic, and cultural perspectives, but never have we considered it from the perspective of contemporary design. » - Pan JianFeng
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And in fact, if Chinese character formed itself and crystallised its form in time for the purpose of a limited civilisation, Its creation process and philosophy regarding graphical expression are totally relevant in today’s globalised societies… Even more relevant as they were primarily established to unified under a unique and productive code.
Confucianism : the emblem of Order and Harmony
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see today’s China at a turning point of its history. Dominating the world economically, they acquire a legitimacy and are under the spotlight of the international community. This sudden publicity allow China to confront itself to the most powerful and influent countries without blushing. If China has been feared for its size and ideology, today Western look at it with a mix of fascination and inability to understand their vision of the world. If we have no trouble measuring its weight on the market with quantitative factors, as its population or its growth per year, we remain in the fog and insensitive to its culture. This is China’s biggest asset and challenge. Because like United States after the war, China has the unique occasion to reinvent itself completely through what we call the ‘soft power’.
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To keep its dynamism and its attractiveness, China will have to conceive a model of communication that will serve at the same time its market strategy and identity when also spreading its model of culture. In order to remain stable and sustainable the Chinese model of production will has to move from a productive system to a creative one. In this way, unlike the United States, China is not a newborn country and is already full of a cultural and emblematic history that it can rely on. Where United States create a mythology as and when they were living it, China sit on a rich cultural background all ready to be spread. As soon as it will find a way to be unleashed, the world will have to deal with it in a way or the other. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, calligraphy and Chinese language are for me the core assets of this culture. But Chinese language is not suitable for everyone and do not benefit from a confortable situation in regards of its influence abroad. Well, my purpose as a designer is not to make people speak Chinese. Just like it is not a designer’s task to make (if not force) people to use its product. My task when I analysed calligraphy as system of communication was to understand its core function so it could be duplicated, adapted and built in a modern society regardless of its origin. If my will is to know what is the place of designers in China, my real purpose is to define one, in relation with its time and space.
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A designer does not come up with fancy and practical already made solutions. In the contrary, his tasks is to create systemic models to solve problem, so their users could be able to experience, improve and share his concept to the rest of the world. I would consider it a failure if the only thing that comes out of my essay is a unique solution to solve a specific problem. My purpose as never been to solve problem for people as designer, but to give them the material and immaterial tools that will allow them to solve the problem on their own. In my quest of the designer’s place in China, I get carried away by the idea that I will define an answer that will express a sensible idea more than a convenient solution. This why I lead my study and research to a moral approach(4) on top of a purely rational one : « Confucianism is not only an attempt to rationally explain the world, it is also a political and social moral; if not a true religion […], at least a philosophical attitude which adapt equally to a certain religiosity, scepticism or even to a complete agnosticism. » - Fernand braudel
If I call upon the ghost of Confucius in this essay, it is not because of the facility that Western people have to rely on this emblematic figure of China. It is not
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because I personally share a common vision of the world with this school of thoughts. It is because Confucianism is the perfect exemple of the syncretism that China achieved in calligraphy. « Beings and things existe and last due to the Harmony established by the saints author of the national civilisation. It’s their Wisdom which allow humans and beings to comply with their essence and realise their destiny. »
- Marcel Granet
When appointed to the rank of Emperor, the son of the Sky apply its view of the world through the process of « 稱名 » (Cheng Ming). In the same occasion, he bound his power to his people by giving them the emblems that will define the world. In this new mondial order (if I may say), the Emperor not only involve its interpretation of the world, he also stand Virtuous among the people of the earth. He is responsible for the upholding of this Harmony in the universe. « Universe is only a system of behaviours, and the spirit behaviour does not distinguish itself from the matter’s behaviour. […] The notion of spirit, the idea of an essence totally spiritual and opposed to the body and more broadly to the entier matter is a totally stranger to Chinese way of thinking. »(5)
- Marcel Granet
It is in his essence that the Emperor get is legitimacy. When people and matters live
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together in harmony, when the emperor give the right place for each things and beings in the universe, it is said that his commandement is Virtuous. Emperors in China were the guarantor of the social and supernatural order. Fernand Braudel wrote ‘What the Emperor does, it comes from the temporal and the sacred at the same time’. However, if this system remain unchanged for such a long time in China(6) it is because this apparent absolute power of the Emperor had a countervailing power… « Expression of the State’s authority, the status of scholars (persons of letter) grow at the same time as the first big principalities and as soon as writing began the condition of law and leadership. »
- Fernand braudel
The First countervailing power is symptomatic of the vast realm of China. In fact the Emperor, as a superior being, was not able to mix with the common people. If his words was sacred and his power absolute, his influence had to be delegated to others. As he were enclosed in the home of heaven, his only contact he had with the exterior world had to pass through the lettered person. Train by letters and written expression, the Mandarins were responsable for the diffusion of the Son’s of the Sky philosophy on the world. They were the actor in the Emperor’s province of the establishment of the order coming from the sky. The Emperor practice the « 無為 » («无为 » »Wuwei - inaction),
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letting the responsibility to the Mandarins of applying painful reform and exactions. They were the equal of the Lords in Western in the way that they were the satellites of the central power, but they did not acquire their authority by the blood or money but by their prestige(8). « The Chinese way of thinking make a difference between what is « 本 » (ben), represented by those who produced the national wealth, in other words the farmer, but also the one who insure the functioning of the society, the lettered person. On the other hand what was superfluous, or at least a detail « 末 » (mo, ‘tip, extremity’), that was not production of wealth but only limited to carry or transform it […]. The principe of this was that the prestige should bring richness and not the richness that would bestow it. »
- Jacques Pimpaneau
Prestige and importance in the society is not a matter of rank and power. Considered as the one who feed the spirit of the Emperor by their labor, farmers, if not wealthy, was deeply respected in the society. Their status balanced the power of the lettered which were themselves inherited from the Emperor and as the majority of the population in China, their well being was prevalent in this balance and harmony that every monarch had to achieve to have a peaceful mind. All disorders which will weaken this peace, be it natural or social, were equally symbols of a breach in the Harmony
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settled by the Emperor and just as many reason to destitute him as he were no longer legitimate in his role of guardian of the Virtue. As he lost control on the reality, the Emperor had no longer the power to name and settle things : « Heavens sees as the earth » As I understood the significance of the words as a graphic emblem that include the power to settle and harmonise the world, it appears to me that the role of a designer in China had to follow these precepts if he were willing to be coherent and credible in front of the society. Like the Emperor which get its Virtue for the Heaven, he gives to earth the tool that will enable human to define and mould his environment. In this way a designer make a tacit contract (if not one on paper) with society as he engages himself in a virtuous way of his practice. Then he defines a set of rules and concepts which he gives to the society that will digest and adapt it to its needs. Through an interprétation of the world, the Designer give a way to evolve inside it. However, if society determines a set of rules or concept as obsolescent or no more adequate, it removes in the same way this Virtue of the Designer. If society will definitely replace the lapsed version of Design by a new one, bringing Virtue again, the designer finds himself facing a test. If it can be traumatising for a Designer to be excluded of its core value and judged inadequate by the society, we
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have to relativised on it. Every Designer will face such failure in his life. The fact his as the Emperor can change, its status will remain the same. As Design can evolved in time, its core function will remain intact. Consequently to its momently ostracisation from the world of Design by its users, or as I could see it by the farmers that plough the land of Design, Designer should redefine its role. He is facing a choice : - He can decide to follow this new Virtue that replaced him and as a Mandarins and be the messenger of a new Harmony in Design. His unique hope to reconquest its former status of Emperor being to master this new Virtue and supplant it. - He can decide to draw away from it, follow his own path in opposition to the society’s one. In this more Taoist’s view of the world, the designer would take the choice to give up his role in the society. If he will be no more a doer, the designer will remain coherent with his analyse of its discipline and accepte his dilapidated status. Either he will choose the assimilation or the exclusion of himself, he will defines his role in the society. A Designer outside the society remain a Designer. By changing its status he does not loose his essence. Having the power to practice Design in the society, but not mastering its definition and action circle, the role of a designer is not to question its practice but its core essence.
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A society drove by virtuous concepts will expect for similar results within itself. A society drove by weak concepts will be impoverished by itself. Here the matter is not either or not the concepts are bad or good for a designer. His tasks his to understand why society relies on bad or good choice of Design. Of all the Designs of the world, no one is able to last forever. Only the Idea of Design itself should remains and not the designs that defined it punctually. So Design can be well practiced. « A peer proudly told me how he used a hundred logo schemes to please his clients and assumed that the clients could certainly pick a couple of schemes out of them. However, I think that this method is like giving a sharp sword to his enemy as he were seeking his own doom. Not only he will bound to die miserably, he deserves his death. » - Pan JianFeng
Enforcing a design process when an other one would resolves a problematic in a easiest way is not productive. Design follow a logic of cycle and a process does not remain virtuous forever. Accepting this cycle and put obsolete Designs to death is a responsible way of practicing Design. technic nor the culture on design from the West to develop and apply a singular approach on Design.
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PART TWO
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A journey across Design
Lok Ng, Flower â–²
Design by « Elegance »
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very Designer share the secret wish to stand out from the crowd. They all sick to discover the particularity that will make them relevant in the enormous field of Graphic Design and among their peers. I guess that to do so, you will first have to define the characteristic of this field and then find a niche or be a pioneer by putting a step in a zone that nobody explored before. This positioning in Graphic Design, as it is not spatial but visual, is translated in term of styles, forms, colours, evocations, contrast… You set for yourself a combination of assets and tools in order to reach a point of technical and creative skills to build an identity for your work so you can be recognisable. But at the end, the elegance in work does not depend on what you work look like when you are done. A graphic designer that describe itself through its past work is only the reflection of society, as its works answer to its needs and not from his. what really matter is the spirit you got when you are actually working, as a designer is defined by the way he deals with a problem. While a perfect piece of work seems to be obvious and simple in this application, the process behind it is the real issue. Elegance come from a process, not the solution. « To Design » is to figure a problem out, literally “to give a shape to a solution”, making possible or real an abstract idea of
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the spirit. In the same way, “a design” is the idea to plan a set of action and process in order to reach a goal, an achievement; moreover, the wish to concretely project yourself in a fictive situation and still remain in the order of the “possible”. The Design, in a professional way, is a broad creative discipline that is constrained to some imperative of productivity, so it can be sustainable in the long term, efficient in its usage and answering to the supply and demand. At the end, the first task of a Designer is to solve this problem, this balance, when he also has to create an “elegant” solution. In the term “elegant”, I like to compare design and the view on mathematics, that Stephan Hawking have in “The Grand Design »(9), to explain it. A searcher in mathematics, when he faces a new problem, try to solve it by proving that his way of thinking is efficient. By keeping the harmony of the previous rules of mathematics while he is still creating a theory that bring new perspectives, new questions in his field. At the end, the first task of a mathematician is to solve a problem when he is also trying to create an “elegant” solution : « Elegance, for example, is not something easily measured, but it is highly prized among scientists because laws of nature are meant to economically compress a number of particular cases into one simple formula. Elegance refers to the form of a
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theory, but it is closely related to a lack of adjustable elements, since a theory jammed with fudge factors is not very elegant. To paraphrase Einstein, a theory should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. […] Though added complexity could make the model more accurate, scientists view a model that is contorted to match a specific set of observations as unsatisfying, more of a catalog of data than a theory likely to embody any useful principle. » - Stephen Hawking,
Elegance here is the common factor that bounds design and mathematics. It will always be required to a designer to create something that is “intuitive”, “beautiful” and/or “innovating” (the three of them being even better) as it is always the most “logical”, “harmonious” and “pioneering” work that will be preferred between two different theories on the same subject. At the end « elegance » is the ability to have the perfect balance to answer a problematic. You have to see it as something your clients may not pay attention to but that is crucial for your work. You could produce logotype and visual identity out of the blue for you entire carier without caring about the way that lead you there and, actually, it could work for you. But there is two reasons that would make you rethink that. Firstly you could stumble upon a client that really care for design and ask you to defend the choices you made to give birth to your production. « Pure genius »
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is hardly a good a answer… as you could have guess. If intuition and feelings are undoubtedly part of our work, reason and mindset behind your production should be the foundation of your work. Secondly, the day when your « mojo » will fail you, you will have to lean on recipes and technics that have proven to be right. Otherwise you will not only disappoint your client, but also degrade yourself from an effective designer to a simple « design maker ». In a book of Pan JianFeng(10), a Chinese Designer living in ShangHai, I saw this second concept of this « elegance » delivered by Alan Fletcher as an encouragement and a motto for his young student : « Design is produced in the process from the birth of concept to the final implementation. Both the big productions, like painting, movie and commercial advertisement, and small things like rearrangement of one’s own room are designs. Some people earn a living by selling images. They call themselves designers, but in fact they are only bluecollar workers in the world of art. Whereas painters are concerned with solving their own problems; the designer’s role is to solve other people’s problems. Actually that’s an oversimplification : the real issue is the elegance of the solution that solves the problem (…) » - Alan Fletcher
From this point of view, we could define this elegance by an attitude regarding
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the practice of design, by opposition to a discipline you have to master. But it tend to confond the notion of elegance with talent. That is, maybe, why there is in the world as many designer from schools than selfmade one. As there is not really a formula to apprehend and understand this elegance, but only a common comprehension of it. « Design could be a responsible and creative attitude that entail transformations of this ‘non human’ part which we interact with, in order to improve the quality of this interaction and, more widely, life in society. » - Ruedi Baur
From this point of view(11), what make the difference between the designers is their attitude toward their discipline. This point of view echoes to the beginning of my studies. My first contact with the world of graphic art and design was in 2010. My first memory with this world was the first day of class in my first year. Our professor of Graphic Art deliver a speech(12) on our discipline from which I drew at the time what will be a first moto regarding my practice of Graphic Design : « You are not artists. You don’t practice design for yourselves. Graphic designer use the tool of art in order to communicate by a process of thought and symbol that carry a message from or for a client.».
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Interstellar, Black whole â–ś
In his mouth, the Designer we were, defined themselves as the servitor of a tiers. We used art but do not create it. We would never be recognised for our knowledgeability and creativity but for our effectiveness to communicate using the best medium and graphical expression. This definition appears radical to me and sounded a little bit as a caricatural way of saying « are you sure you are made for this ? ». Today I realised that if it was to intimidate us and to calm our egos, it also contained an essential truth I learned on Design - It cannot be practiced with selfishness. Design is destined to the appreciation of a public, either it is one person at a time or directly with an enormous crowd. The attitude you take regarding design will define the relevance of your work as it reflect your positioning and character directly to the client. Now if every designers are able to be sustainable, efficient and answer to the supply and demand, the aspect of the “elegance” is unique to each of them. As it could be for their personality, their character, their notion of this elegance will demarcate them, and moreover demarcate every design agency. I believe that you acquire this sensibility from your personal background and your peers. It is a language which has its own trends, codes, styles, expressions, colours, temperaments…
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Design, a movement from West to East If the elegance is related to personal experiences, the culture in contrary is a common base. Culture seen as the creation of the intellectual regarded collectively. But what is this base in China and how does it act on what we called the “elegance” of the Chinese designers ? Moreover, can we spot a significant differences in Chinese’s way of making Design thanks to this elegance, or if not, what could be the Chinese way of doing Design, according to their culture ? For me the answer lies in the difficulty that China had until now to make its language, or at least the representation of it, a symbol of strength and not a barrier that is both symbol of mystery and confusion. This feeling that China is a superpower is shared by everyone and tends to provoke fear of the unknown rather than an ambitious feeling of adventure. Entrepreneurs should look at it as a land of discovery and learn from it. This frustration is deeply felt among Chinese designers. ShaoHua Chen explaining its feeling regarding Western designer and Chinese Design is a good example : « An undeniable reality had to be recognised : Western countries are more developed than China, graphic design in the West is logically stronger than our. In several cases, western standards are usually mondial standards. We have to follow the
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exemple and subject ourselves to their standards. Otherwise, we can’t dialogue as equals as they don’t deeply understand our culture, they still respect us in a kind of exotic vision »(13)
- ShaoHua Chen
In his mind we can stress the fact that there is a certain resignation or fatalism regarding the way that the West looks at China. Moreover as he defines this standards as « usually » being « mondial standards », we can deduct that in his eyes, Design nowadays is Western Design. Still if he does not define it as the only possible design way, he relates the perfection level of design to the development of the society it came from. In my opinion this is as right as it is wrong. If a develop society will certainly have better chance to produce « developed » designers and most of all have a better chance to promote them, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will develop their economy and culture in this way. In the opposite, a culture « less » developed than an other can create equally « developed » design if they be willing to do so. Never the less, if china wants to have the same audience for design as Western got, they will have to deal with western code in order to be recognised internationally. It also doesn’t mean that they have to communicate with the same tools and code, but they will have to understand how West communicate to itself in order to create new tools and code that both rely
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on Western and Eastern comprehension. Otherwise, China will take the big risk to only be the factory of Western design as they have been to the industrial sector in the past, and cut themselves from the Asian public (including themselves). In a second time ShaoHua Chen has a second look on what is design : « It seems that the most important should be to ask yourself these two questions : What is ‘Graphic Design’ ? How graphic design could solved numerous ‘real problem in China’? If every of our designers is able to do a really good job on the field to solve problems, the Chinese graphic design will naturally be ‘Chinese’. »
- ShaoHua Chen
Again, ShaoHua Chen does not relate a specific design to its culture. He simply defines the efficiency of design to the capacity of the culture it is related with to perform it well. In his way, there is good Chinese Design or there is no Design at all. It also means that Design is not a matter of culture or civilisation but only a matter of skill that one culture is willing to put in it. He finally finishes his definition through these words : « Creation in graphic design transmits messages and aesthetic experiences from the designer to the user by stating in substance the issue or the subject. This practice can’t be limited to an idea of
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Nation or Race. In the opposite, we can gather different aesthetic or cultural interpretation regarding our creations. These differences lead to differentiations in the graphic design field. I think there is neither presupposed nor determined style from a culture in its beginning. »
- ShaoHua Chen
Here ShaoHua Chen push the definition of design even further. He implies that design is only lead by the relation of a designer to its users. It doesn’t matter from where he come from, it’s an individual work detached from any relation to culture. The fact that we differentiate nation or category of design came from the audience, the one who look at it and recognise itself in it. So if most of Chinese people will like the work of a german designers, in his mind, ShaoHua Chen will define this design as Chinese design but the designer as a designer from Germany. In the light of this declarations we can define Design as an universal discipline that occurs to be produced in a totally individual way of creation but categorised and defined by their users and peers. These categories will be created as they recognised in a nation or a group of individuals a style that bound them to each others. In this way designs that are seemingly appreciated and created with the same amount of skills as required will lead the biggest community of designers to be recognised as the « standard ».
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This make us come back to this notion of « elegance » which would be related to and developed from the major model so it could be useful for everyone and logical regarding the whole field of Design. But what if it appears that this whole model is obsolete or wrong ? To this question the specialist in contemporary art Valérie Arrault(14) tend to have an answer : « Everything is settle as the mixing of non-western forms of art with western modernity forms are the only way for pieces of art to integrate the international circuit. undoubtedly, this mix, if it opens the gates of the legitimate international art, doesn’t come from the deep original imaginary of the civilisations that practice it, but is ordered by the West, and obviously, by the consumerist way of life of the ‘american way of life’. » - Valérie Arrault
Here more than ShaoHua Chen tend to think, Valérie Arrault supports that this recognition from the international circuit is not only an obligation but also a filter that only take in account the pieces that are a mix between a chosen culture and the Western one. In this way as the Western factor is always in the game, it does not allow other culture or even individual designers to develop a « different » yet as « good » Design. It would be simply ignored.
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This point of view on the flaws that Western encounter regarding Design are also shared by the designer Pan JianFeng and the economist Martin Jacques. Their record on the topic reveals more a systemic difficulties of the West to accommodate its culture to China rather than an incompatibility from China to incorpore and interpret the Western concept of Design. Pan JianFeng’s feelings on the matter meet ShaoHua Chen’s on this nearly pathological West’s behaviour which has the bad habits to turn its eyes from the Chinese Designers : « While I could complain about how this book’s editors successfully neglected the designs from a quarter of the world’s population […], I can also understand that this phenomenon is due in a part to Chinese people’s ignorance of design and the lack of professional promotion of Chinese culture. After all, in the past century, we have had too many other problems to solve. »(15) - Pan JianFen
In this ironic analyse of the design’s status in China, Pan JianFeng deplore, in the same time, the lack of interest that is put into Chinese design among both Chinese people and the international community. He denounces the apathy of China which takes refuge behind political and sociological crisis, whereas it should have prevailed as a perfect playground for designers to outdo themselves under
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drastic constrains. On the other hand, not promoting design is different from not doing design. As China did not realised the influence of this discipline, it does not erased what they already did in this field. Actually, saying that China is not involved in design is partly wrong. Everyday artist such as Yang Yongliang, Lok Ng or Moretong are at the cutting edge of graphic design. Also company which were first in Western countries understand the crucial need to have a branch in China and develop a strategy according to this new land. One of the best example being Frog Design. China has a consequent heritage on design. Even before it was fully industrialised, China maintain a dialogue on design and its practice with the West at first. From the 1920’s to the the 1940’s, these culture even mixed in unique and original ways. Moreover, cutting its relation with Western influence from the 1940’s to the beginning of the 1970’s did not isolate China from the field of Design. In the light of Chinese graphic designers works as specific as the « Da Zi Bao » (大字报)(16) it is certain that China did not need the technic nor the culture on design from the West to develop and apply a singular approach on Design. In a second time, Martin Jaques pull a explanation up that could explain such a behaviour regarding the acknowledgement of Chinese Design, and more broadly the its culture :
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â—€ Moretong, Voicer
« Our Attitude (of the West) toward China is firstly arrogant, in the way that we think we are the best and therefor we have the universal measure, and is secondly ignorant. We refuse to really address the issue of difference. » - Martin Jacques
He then proceed to illustrate his argument with a reasoning from Paul Cohen(17) : « Paul Cohen argues that the West think of itself as probably the most cosmopolitan off all cultures. But it is not. In many ways it is the most parochial, because for two hundred years the West has been so dominant in the world that it did not really need to understand other cultures. […] Because at the end of the day it could, if necessary by force, gets its own way. Whereas those culture (the rest of the world) have been thereby, forced to understand the West. » - Martin Jacques
So we end up with an universal definition of design that is filtered nationally and internationally both by the majority of recognised designers and new designers themselves, already knowing that if they want to have a chance to compete with the « greatest » they will have to bend to a specific set of rules. These is no longer related to what I called « Design » at the beginning of my definition. These are just competition of influence and soft power games. Design settled by the international community
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tends to be rigid, subjective and not productive. If I began by questioning the meaning of Graphic Design in China, I remained without a clear answer. Now, I could possibly look for this second question, « How graphic design could solve numerous ‘real problem in China ?’ », with a more tangible objective, as a « real problem » can’t remain unsolved… Or at least not forever. In this essay, I actually merge the two questions of ShaoHua Chen : « Why graphic design is a real problem in China ? ». As we have seen, first leads on the question show us that China and its relation with design outside its borders raised issues. Unable to communicate and promote its relation with design inside and outside its frontiers, Design in China suffers from a lack of recognition by its peers around the world. In a vicious circle it makes it difficult for national assets to gather other designers under an effective and credible speech. I see a way out in the point of view of Pan JianFeng. Where China crave for recognition, they should compensate by exploiting and promoting design for itself. I see on its tremendous amount of population, and the issues raised by it, a formidable opportunity for Graphic Designers in China to experience a new
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culture, not the heritage of it but the one which is currently produced. I see it as an opportunity to practice a discipline in a uncharted field. Some will be afraid by the unknown and criticise the lack of data on these potential « opportunities ». Yet we already know the rules of Design, only its language changed. And yet the need for Design being hardly felt, it let us without competition. We stand in front of a land of innovation and we see it as a barren land. In the end I think that graphic design is a real problem in China today because they have the culture and background to be great designers but did not redefine the meaning of such a discipline in its time. Using words and interpretation that I developed earlier, I see China as calligraph that did not succeed in expressing its inner self into a clear definition of what is design. He remains a blue collar of the world of design, unable to find the key that will open the window to his discipline for the population. He remains a scholar without brush, unable to write down what the sky whisper in its ear or in the contrary unable to reshape his words for the world he lives in. If it is true that the rest of the world does not really care about design in China or looks at it with denial, I see in China a bigger problem. It is its inability to reinvent Design to its time. It is its inability to renovate and innovate with its own tool design as it has already been in China. Design is by essence a universal discipline. But China already understand that and a day will come where it will be our turn to
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reshape the word of « Design » regarding the standard of China. I am certain of that.
Yang YongLiang, Phantom landscape ▾
Aknowledgement :
A
fter this long trip through the Chinese landscape of thoughts and culture, I finally remain with more questions that I firstly got before this journey. I see it as a success. I don't think that an essay is meant to settle some truths but to raise even more issues on a topic. This willing of digging and searching deeper and deeper I owe it to my parents, and I thank them warmly for it. I always appreciated our countless debates and exchange around this topic and more widely, China. I think it has been the mane motivation through the writing of this essay. Once again, thank you. Secondly, I would not have been able to have such a large scale of study and the capacity to recentre myself at the same time without my dear professor Karolina PAWLIK that has always share a deep interest for my subject and has shown a lot of patience with me. Going through this essay with you has been a true pleasure and I thank you for that. Finally I would like to thank my classmates, and especially my bro’, Simon, that shared doubts, despair, incomprehension, nervous laughs, fatigue and finally accomplishment and joy while we were writing this essay side by side during long nights. Dude… we made it ! Oh… and I almost forget to thank Jacques Martin for his involuntary support.
BIBlIoPgraPhy : BOOK : Fernand Braudel, Grammaire des civilisations, (Champs histoire Flammarion, 2013) Marcel Granet, La pensée Chinoise, (Bibliothèque de l’évolution de l’humanité/Albin Michel,1966 - 2012 ) Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, (Paperback, 2012) Lorraine Justice, China’s Design revolution, (The MIT Press, 2012) Jacques Pimpaneau, Chine culture et traditions, (Édition Philippe Picquier, 1988) JianSheng Pan, Cross Visual Communication, (ShangHai ShuHua Publishing House, 2013) VIDEO : Jean-Michel Carré, Chine, le nouvel Empire, 2013 Martin Jacques, Understanding the rise of China, Youtube. com/watch?v=imhUmLtlZpw, janv. 2011 Hans Rosling, Asia’s rise -- how and when, youtube.com/ watch?v=fiK5-oAaeUs, 25 Nov. 2009
ARTICLE : Interview Irène Berelowitch, Quand la Chine triomphera, http://www. arte.tv/fr/quand-la-chine- triomphera/7457664.html, 2013 Article Wendy Siuyi WONG, in Search of a New Graphic Design Frontier in China : Establishing the “Chinese-ness” of International Style, 2008 Dandan LU, Design graphique à l’ère de la Chine postmoderne, IRIEC – Institut de Recherche Intersite en Etudes culturelles, 29 septembre 2012
NOTES : (1)
cf. p.6,7
Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, (Albin Michel, 2012) - p.47
(2)
Pan JianFeng, Cross Visual Communication, (ShangHai ShuHua Publishing House2013) - p.164 (3)
Fernand Braudel, Grammaire des Civilisations, (Champs Histoire, 2013) - p.257 (4)
Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise, (Albin Michel, 2012) - p.319
(5)
In his book, La pensée Chinoise, Marcel Granet defirenciate the continuity of the monarchal that last four thousand years and the absolute one which began at the Dynatsy Qing and the Emperor HuangDi, p.270
(6)
Grammaire des Civilisations, Fernand Braudel on the scholarship of the lettered person, p.258
(7)
Chine Culture et traditions, Jacques Pimpaneau (Édition Philippe Picquier, 2004) - p.23,24
(8)
The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking (Paperback, 2012) - p.47
(9)
Cross Visual Communication, Pan JianFeng (ShangHai ShuHua Publishing House2013)
(10)
Les 101 mots du Design Graphique à l’usage de tous, Ruedi Baur - op.cit p.7
(11)
Speech made in the preparatory class of L’ESAG Penninghen during the year 2010 (12)
ShaoHua Chen, Le Design graphique chinois avait ignoré des problèmes de la Chine (《忽略中国问题的 “中国 (13)
设 计” Hulue Zhongguo Wenti de ZhongguoSheji》)
, Septembre 2011, available on : http://blog.sina.com. cn/s/blog_4a4473a80100yxkn.html
Valérie Arrault, Le pouvoir des critères artistiques occidentaux face à la mondialisation - p23,41
(14)
Cross Visual Communication, Pan JianFeng (ShangHai ShuHua Publishing House2013) - p.164
(15)
Design graphique à l’ère de la Chine postmoderne 平面设计 在中国的后现代时期, Dadan Lu (Thèsis 29th of september 2012) - p.156 (16)
Understanding the rise of China, Martin Jacques (TED talk January 2011) Youtube watch?v=imhUmLtlZpw
(17)
ChēngMíng : « The first task of a chief is to provide for the men the emblems that allow them to domesticate the Nature, because they define, for every human being, its personality and its place and rank in the World. […] ‘Make the correct designation’ (‘稱名’) is in fact the first governmental obligation. » - Marcel Granet