You Zhang
Introduction What is Vivid Verse
Process Concept Explorations
Applications Postcard Book Scarves
Exhibition Space Gallery Talk Installation
Essay Inspiration Background System
Introduction What is Vivid Verse
Vivid Verse uses visual language and structure to translate Chinese into pattern, enabling audiences from all cultural backgrounds to feel and reveal the emotional essence of the original poem.
6 INTRODUCTION
Could I ever be quiet as a monk and free as a cloud?
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Fear Melancholy Contempt Worry Apathy Sadness Anxiety
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The Meaning of Colors Certain colors are tied to cultural, emotional and social connections. Here, I curated 7 positive and 7 negative according to emotions.
Courage Ecstasy Contentment Happiness Joy Optimism Anticipation
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Structures Chinese characters are composed within 17 defined structures.
Grid vs. Content With those geometric shapes, I generated grids according to the characters in every sentence. 10 INTRODUCTION
Emotion Transition Color Swatches The system applies color gradients to the grid of Chinese characters to convey the change in meaning and emotion that occurs in each poem.
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Process Concept Explorations
The Evolution of Chinese Characters Based on pictographs, Chinese characters combine shapes with sounds and connotations to form unique, blockshaped characters that carry meanings.
14 PROCESS
Sun
Moon
Wood
Mountain
Water
Field
Door
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Chinese Components Chinese character uses graphical components to structure itself. The components are listed in the dictionary for people to look up characters.
Grass
Claw
Wood Vegetable
Combination The layout of every Chinese character has to fit into the same amount of space– an imaginary square, no matter how complex it is.
17 PROCESS
暮从碧山下， 却顾所来径， 相携及田家， 绿竹入幽径， 欢言得所憩， 长歌吟松风， 我醉君复乐，
DOWN ZHONGNAN MOUNTAIN TO THE KIND PILLOW AND BOWL OF HUSI
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Down the blue mountain in the evening, Moonlight was my homeward escort. Looking back, I saw my path, Lie in levels of deep shadow. I was passing the farm-house of a friend, When his children called from a gate of thorn, And led me twining through jade bamboos, Where green vines caught and held my clothes. And I was glad of a chance to rest, And glad of a chance to drink with my friend. We sang to the tune of the wind in the pines; And we finished our songs as the stars went down, When, I being drunk and my friend more than happy, Between us we forgot the world.
山月随人归； 苍苍横翠微。 童稚开荆扉； 青萝拂行衣。 美酒聊共挥； 曲尽河星稀。 陶然共忘机。
Sample Poem Here is a sample of what a poem looks like after transform into structures.
19 PROCESS
Gradient?
20 PROCESS
Or Solids?
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Why No Solid Color? Solids are visually flat and difficult for people to discern within the context of the structures.
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Why Gradient? It is easy for audience to identify the color blend options from gradient. And at the same time, a gradient has a sense of color flow exist within itself.
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PROCESS
Unrevealed Poems Here are the poems I translated and colored but did not include in the poem book.
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Motion Graphics
Tip
Sometimes, it is good to switch back and forth between graphic to motion mindset. It helps to refresh my mind if I try to work on motion graphic after staring at 2D graphic for too long.
Color coding layers in AE is very helpful for you to group certain amount of layers instead of hide them into a pre-comp.
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PROCESS
Applications Postcard Book Scarves
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Poem Book Size 6in x 6in Hardcover
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Postcard Size 4in x 6in Spot UV
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Bandanna Size 26in x 26in Silk Chiffon
Accessory Design By applying my design to wearable, it extends the access and reaches my project audiences.
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Scarf Size 16in x 72in Silk Chiffon
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Exhibition Space Gallery Talk Installation
Tip While designing your elevation, make sure to put your neighbors into consideration. Maintaining harmony and visual rhythm of the show is very important.
Exhibition Space 55 EXHIBITION
I have a wide open space. It allows audience watch my exhibition from different directions.
To my understanding, not a single person can make a perfect project by himself. Keep questioning about you project, and invite your peers to critique your project could be really helpful.
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Tip You can try to talk to the person who stands at the very back of the crowd, so that everyone will be able to hear you.
I really appreciate all the feedbacks and suggestions from my instructors and peers. They make my project better.
Communication is one of the things that I improved from my thesis project. I learned how to express myself accurately, communicate with problems.
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My thesis reflects my 5 years life of studying abroad. I see it as a statement for being an international student in a foreign country.
Digital Printing Epson Pro 9900 Enhanced Matt Paper
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Tip If you used vector file. Make sure to zoom in Adobe Illustrator to check out the details of your file before printing. Adobe Illustrator does really bad job of line-up shapes.
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Tip
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Weeding Vinyl is a hard job. It requires high patience and good handcrafting skill. It took me 1 day to install everything and 3 days to weed vinyls. If you will be cutting types under the size of 36pt. You should consider print it ASAP, so you will have sufficient time to get your vinyl prepared.
Essay Inspiration Background System
Inspiration
Coming from a foreign culture, I have experienced culture shock and a startling number of misunderstandings during my years living in the United States. The differences between east and west are more drastic than I imagined. Take family values for instance. In China, people value the “family bond” and “collective power”. On the other hand , Americans appreciate individualism; they encourage their kids to express themselves and “be different”. As a result, effective cross-cultural communication can be elusive on nearly every level. With this in mind, I have designed a visual system of text translation, a color-coded system that taps into “pre-verbal” communication and deeper meaning. Most artists and designers incorporate color in their practices, and the success of their works are relevant to their understanding of how to use colors. Wassily Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists, he believes that colors can affect the soul and spirit. In his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, he consider that color and form are two weapons of painting. He made a case for the importance of colors and its associations with forms that can create spiritual effects: “ This essential connection between color and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on color. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion.” He also indicates that only the third element accounts for the timeless in art ,“which knows neither period nor nationality.” Influenced by the color theory of Wassily Kandinsky, I would like to use color to articulate human emotions and feelings in my thesis project.
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Ikko Tanaka is a Japanese graphic designer, art director and editor, who’s famous for his poster designs, which are fusions of western modernism and traditional Japanese aesthetic. His works are strong, clean an d colorful. One of his most well-known poster design is Nihon Buyo, designed for Asian Performing Arts Institute in 1981. The way how he marries geometric shapes with traditional Japanese geisha figure is a novel to graphic design history. I’m quite inspired by the grids that he created in his abstract works, so in my thesis I’m seeking a way to create a system that can generate grids cohesive to the assigned content and imply the poet’s emotions and thoughts. Intonation and rhythm are especially hard to preserve when translating Chinese poetry to English. Intonation and rhythm are critical in any poetry. They contribute to the meanings in classical Chinese poetry, and they are what makes Chinese poetry resonate with meaning and sound beautiful.
Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Wassily Kandinsky
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost
Background
Translation is a supremely challenging activity. Something is bound to be lost. The translation between Eastern and Western languages is difficult because of the differences of language forms and symbols, grammar, syntax, intonation, history, culture, and religion. The Chinese language has a Sino-Tibetan origin, and the English language has an Indo-European origin. The languages have radically different alphabets. Chinese uses logographic forms as their written language while English uses twenty-six letter forms. Chinese words and sentences are created differently than English words and sentences. So, when translating from Chinese to English, a translator is always at risk of losing meaning, nuance, mood, and cultural references embedded in the language itself. It is nearly impossible to translate the sound and form of Chinese into another language. But those sounds and forms have unique significances in Chinese poetry. As the world is increasingly globalized, language translation becomes a more important international and inter-cultural activity. Translation has existed ever since humanity start spoken languages. The first written proof of interpreting dates back to 3000 BC, at which time the Ancient Egyptians had a hieroglyphic signifying “interpreter”. According to the demand of business development after the Industrial Revolution in mid18th century, translation as a specialty have become formalized. Poetry is a special, self-conscious way of employing language. It is very unique compared with other forms of literature. American poet Robert Frost suggested that poetry was what was left behind in translation. He meant that context, culture, literary history, and more all contribute to the nuances and associations a poet intends to be understood in poetic verse, and those are nearly impossible to recreate in a poem translated from one language to another, especially translating between cultures or even historical periods.
Colors plays a pivotal role in human visual experience. The nature of colors associated to human’s mood changes, in art and design, it is been widely used as
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Translating a Chinese poem into English exemplifies the challenges of translating poetry. To start, they do not share alphabets. So it is difficult to match words in English with the words in Chinese poetry. Classical Chinese poetry presents difficulties in translating across historical and cultural time periods. The imageries, associations, and histories described in classical Chinese poetry are evocative symbols that represent and imply the poet’s emotions and thoughts. Intonation and rhythm are especially hard to preserve when translating Chinese poetry to English. Intonation and rhythm are critical in any poetry. They contribute to the meanings in classical Chinese poetry, and they are what makes Chinese poetry resonate with meaning and sound beautiful.
metaphor of emotions. Compared with language, color is more universal, and it speaks to a wider audience. Evidence shows that it is inevitable that colors influence our decision making. In a study by Secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo 2004, 92.6 percent people said that they put most importance on visual factors when purchasing products. Only 5.6 percent people said that the physical feel via the sense of touch was most important. Hearing and smell each drew 0.9 percent. In addition, another study shows that color can improve comprehension by 73 percent.
System
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Chinese characters are designed according to 17 structures/grids. With the 17 variations, I generate grids according the structures of each Chinese character in poems. In addition, I curated 7 positive emotions, such as courage, ecstasy, contentment, happiness, joy, optimism and anticipation; and 7 negative emotions, such as fear, melancholy, contempt, apathy, sadness, anxiety and worry. And then I mix each of the two colors into gradient combinations. Therefore, I get 3 swatches, they are Positive to Negative Emotion Swatch, Positive to Positive Emotion Swatch and Negative to Negative Emotion Swatch. I applied gradient options to sentence grids according to the emotions of characters and the poem.
ESSAY
Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. Pablo Picasso
Thank You Thank you Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips and Jason Gottlieb for everything you've done for me, you helped to shape me as a designer and person. I would like to express my gratitude to MICA GD. I had fruitful two years in Baltimore. I will miss you guys so much. I wish you all the best.