Haze/maze is originally a song composed by my band: Incentive Dry. The project is an interactive graphic music score that can be played as VJ material while the band is proforming the piece to curate a more immersive experience. The score reflects every sound produced by each instrument involved in the song. Graphic Score Video: https://youtu.be/6uC1WpHuo_c
2.
Poster design for Vivid series is a long-term design project I did for my friend who has been organising the raving and party label “Vivid”. Vivids are normally held in the middle of the week at this electronic themed club called Wigwam, located in Beijing. The overall atmosphere of the event is normally chilling and cozy, therefore visual promotion is an essential method to communicate to and attract potential audience.
Normally the organiser of the event would describe to me the essential theme of the music that he and other DJ would be playing; I would then produce trail posters. Finally I would do the adujstments he wanted me to solve.
Cactus
Desert
Add a sense of “vividness” to the overall picture As background
No.4
No.5
Camel
Desert creature, symbolises exotic and mysterious journey?
Sky & Cloud
Balances the overall image & add a sense of peacefulnesss to the overall picture
Other natural objects
To embellish and to make the poste
Initially, the promoter of the event wanted exotic and vibrant electronic music to be played on those events. Such information should be communicated visually. Thus the use of camel, desert, tropical plants as essential elements in the poster. Serif and curlicue fonts was used to fit such purpose. Collage was the main design methodology fo this poster design.
Moon
Emphasis the time frame & add a sense of mysteriousness to the overall picture
For later on events, the promoter wanted a sense of religious or culty atmosphere to be curated accompanied to the music he wanted to play on the events. Thus the use of chapesl, temples, and futuristic factories in the posters. 3D models were designed first, the rendered outcomes were then turnt into two-dimensional imageries with filters and editting.
Detailed coloured glass windows/ carved decorations
Step 1: 3D modelling with Rhino
modelled a Gothic styled Cathedral in Rhino, the modelling software that I’m most familiar with; and applied a range of materials to the building and test out the light and shadow relations to output the fine render.
Step 2: Photoshop to adjust texture and add on various elements
Step 3: Illustrator with informative context Step 4: Adujust overall colour scheme with Photoshop
Grand Cathedral
Main object in the poster - implies the religious sacredness
Can be natural light artificial light to create impacts
Modelled in Rhino, a Gothic Cathedral as the main body of the poster. Plater material applied through out, emphasised upon the shadow projected onto the building
In this step, I editted the texture by applying various filters and adjusted certain properties such as the contrast and noise levels. designed and arranged the title of the event and DJ lineup by using Illustrator.
In this final step, experimented with various colour schemes to select the final outcome.
For later on events, designs were carried out under similar approaches: brainstorming and collecting elements that should be appearing on the overall picture first, then 3D model the main object of the poster, next edit in Photoshop, later arranging informative context in Illustrator, and last adjust overall colour scheme in Photoshop again.
Render testings:
I was extremely inspired by the 90s 00s surreal futuristic aesthetics during this period. The graduate changing gradient and the checkerboard patterned flooring tiles were all used to accomindate such purpose.
Incentive Dry is a 3-piece band my friends (Gu Yuanhao, Chen Bing) and I formed in 2021. The music we produced were mainly inspired by experimental electronic music and alternative rock, while willingly implant the melodic charm in all sorts of soundscapes.
While making the music, I was also responsibile for the design and visual aspects associated with our performances and promotional materials.
This is a mixed gig performance Incentive Dry did at a livehouse in Beijing called Nine-cloud.
All of the band members were attracted to the visual aesthetics and the philosophical concepts behind constructivism. Thus the iterations were made to experiment with geometric forms and the primary colours red, yellow and blue.
The final decision was made upon the most visually comforting iteration. The fonts were designed to comprehense and accommodate the geometric and constructivism overall picture.
And finally othe essential informtion (ie location of the venue, date and time) were added accordingly outside the overall image in a boarder to aviod distractions.
This is the cover designed for our first digital demo. wanted to perpetuate the constructive visual quality but also emphasis slightly on the seriousness subjects regarding to the music that we have been making.
Therefore I selected a series of photos which were taken during our previous performances and turnt them into black and white rectangular blocks and puzzled them into an abstract form. Despite being a digital album, wanted to demonstrate a printed-like quality, thus the adding of abundant amount of canvas texture to the background.
Full album for listening: https://soundcloud.com/incentive-dry/tracks
VJ design can create strong visual impacts alongside the music played thus led to a more immersive experience to the audience during performances. have recorded, editted and made video materials correlate to each song we, Incentive Dry made, whether subjects lyrics driven or ambience related to create better visual experience. I used Resolume Areana to VJ while playing instruments.
This is an visual promotional project I did for music festival, “Zaodingmi” (short for noise rock, shoegaze and psychodelic in Mandarin), organised by Modern Skylab.
Formed in the early summer of 2017, aiming at bringing together these types of bands to perform as a platter, and also to fill the empty schedule in the venue. The limitation of style and the support for newcomers have prevented “Zaodingmi” from chasing popular bands like other profit-oriented performance brands. Its lineup over the years has been eccentric, but from the “noisy star fan” came out many stars who became famous in the independent music circle in China.
For this year Zaodingmi created the slogan “out of order connection”, responding to the unexpected pandemic situation.
Disorder: out of order, chaotic
Potential elements: Gradient, from regular to irregularly arranged geometric figures, abstract irregular pattern, distorted background, dot matrix.
Initial iteration 1:
Axonometric view of a hollow 2-floors interior space sliced by arches exteriorly. Placing instrument pieces in the space so they can be observed through the arches. The idea is to add more chaotic elements on a two dimensional sense or through typography design. In regards to motion, is to have neon lights shinning onto various instrument in sequences.
Connections: people and people, people and music, people and space
Potential elements: interior space, music symbolisation, chains(?), abstract curves, linear symbols, curves.
Futuristic: cybernetics, high-tech
Potential elements: hud frames, digital elements, dark background colour.
Initial iteration 2:
Perspective view of a ruin-like interior space, which matches the disorder theme of the event. The plan is to place instruments around the chaotic space and having neon lightings moving around in sequences for the motion poster. The clients were more happy with this iteration, thus being pushed further later on.
The chaotic room in render view after detailization. Transparent glass material were used on the room; reflective steel were used on instruments; the space were decorated with metal grids and bricks to emphasis the chaotic characteristic.
Initial render stills testing lightings and material settings
Editing in After Effects: applying text layers and create more lighting related animations.
Moderation of the room movement within C4D: the room rotates in an anti-clockwise direction and slightly moves in a vertical direction to capture a floating atmosphere.
Zoomed in render view in Rhino
Animation of grids, bricks and other architecture scarps. Used beneath the text layer in the moving poster to intensify the chaotic imperssion.
Actual event promotion page: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WmamzfBACrL3CENIyotHsw
Original motion designs: https://giphy.com/gifs/graphic-design-poster-3d-Q8izL2ob1IDesPNrj0
Wechat banner and main poster Moving poster screenshot 1 Moving poster screenshot 2
This is an virtual space project did for an NFT company called Artverse. The firm was just about to launch a series of NFT associted with the famous handscroll “The Night Revels of Han Xizai. They wanted to have create a virtual gallery, so the buyers can observe those NFT within it.
The Night Revels of Han Xizai or The Night Entertainments of Han Xizai is a painted handscroll attributed to Chinese 10th-century artist Gu Hongzhong. The painting depicts Han Xizai, a minister from Southern Tang under the imperial government of emperor Li Yu, accompanied with realistic portrayals of more than forty people.
Gu Hongzhong was reportedly sent to spy on Han Xizai. In one version of the story, Han Xizai repeatedly missed morning audiences with Li Yu because of his revelry and needed to be shamed into dignified behavior. In another version, Han Xizai refused Li Yu’s offer to become prime minister. To check Han’s suitability and find out what he was doing at home, Li Yu sent Gu Hongzhong alongside another court painter, Zhou Wenju, to one of Han’s night parties and depict what they saw. Each of two painters created a painting based on their observation after a night of partying. Unlike Gu’s painting, the one made by Zhou was subsequently lost.
This dialogue is full of metaphors, and performances. They left “Night Revels of Han Xizai” as evidence of a misplaced dialogue.
The reason why Li Yu sent Gu Hongzhong to paint the picture scroll is to use the predictable painting as a metaphor to reflect Han Xizai’s disadvantages in assistants. However, Gu Hongzhong had already detected Li Yu’s motives before the metaphor occurred; he then constructed this magnificent performance, which also concealed the irony of the impending decline of the Southern Tang Dynasty.
So what happened in the Night Revels of Han Xizai exists as a double medium in the dialogue between Li Yu and Han Xizai. One is as a communication medium, it becomes a carrier for Li Yu and Han Xizai to judge each other’s current situation The second is as a medium for Li Yu to change Han Xizai’s identity. Doing or not doing this defines Han Xizai’s life status and official position.
A Misplaced Dialogue Behind Night Revels of Han Xizai
A Misplaced Dialogue Behind Night Revels of Han Xizai
Elements: folding screens, LED screens, water ripple textured tiles, light oriented flow
This exhibition hall is mainly made up by folding screens. From the perspective of Gu Hongzhong, passing through different section of the hallway, sometimes a wall, sometimes a screen; and then putting those fragments together into a night banquet in his memory picture. The atmosphere of the whole space emphasises on blurred out bondaries thus memory is depicted into a complete picture scroll.
Elements: Stage, Chinese style fence, ancient Chinese sandalwood furniture, ribbon, high wall.
When walking through this scne, a feeling of crumbling and superficial flashiness appears. The ribon guides the audience (Li Yu) to a visual center where all dances, landscapes and interactions happens. But the space is a weightlessness aggregate: it is an unstable space cobbled together by off-the-shelf elements and furnitures.
Scene 1 Through the Doors
Scene 2 Dance Watch
Elements: bedroom elements, stairs, privacies, drapes
Han Xizai has a dual personality of knowledgeable and dissolute. This section of the gallery is designed to look like a bedroom, covered with saturated red drapes and floating instructments to form a lustic immpression. However combined with the stage looking foreground and the long stairs audience have to clim before entering this section, a performative character is added to the space. Perhaps all the lustic and debauchery impressions were pretentious and framed?
Elements: modern interior structure, water, hollow space, patterns
The space symbolises Han Xizai taking a break from the bustling activities, allowing Gu Hongzhong to record such scene onto the picture scroll. This space also gave the audience a momentary rest. The shapes and forms were gained from ancient buildings, but the space is presented in a white mold and minimalist way. The furniture that appeared in Han Xizai’s night banquet appears under water, illustrates the sinking of time.
Scene 3 The Unspeakables
Scene 4 Temporary Rest
Elements: deconstructed Chinese characters, water ripples, veil, natural lights, elements from Chinese garden.
During this section of the scroll, the maids perform with ancient musical instruments. the rhythm of the phrase and the performance can be abstracted into deconstructed Chinese characters to reflects on regular forms are blown away. The natural lightings penatrating through the skylight and then through the veil creates a sense of puzzling and mysteries atmosphere to the interior, and also forces the audience to focus upon the Chinese character sculptures in the water and hanging above despiting wherever they are within this scene.
Elements: luminous deconstructed Chinese characters, upside down ancient pavillion
The whole banquet was immersed in a debauchery atmosphere, implyes Han Xizai’s disappointment and lonliness. The upside down pavillion corresponds to the inevitable sinking political situation of the Southern Tang Dynasty: still seems resplendent, however doomed to fall and difficult to reverse.
Scene 5 Lightly Blown
Scene 6 End of the Banquet
Xiaowang is a Kawaii core / punk band founded in 2017 in the Gulou area in Beijing, between the chaos and the cuteness, everything about Xiao Wang’s music is honest and has raw expression. They have made their first physical album this year. The cover were designed by their vocalist, Yue Tu.
and the pink and green color blocks seemed very energetic, and reminds us of sticker papers that were sold at small vendors in front of typical Chinese schools when we were young. The director of the MV wanted to perpetuate the same visual quality for the music video to pass on the “punk spirit” to audience.
The name of the song is called “Stealing Cowboy Lollipop” (if translated directly) The director of the MV and I share a common interest of taking random objects we see on the street. Such random elements formed essential components of the video. To recreate the sticker-like quality, I matted out those images and turned them into black and white printed or film like png format.
The poster (on the right) for the music video was made with such method.
For the first section of the song (when melodic rhythm starts), the picture consists of close-ups of the band members. The initial step was to matt out figures form the original footages and edit them in an equivalent visual output (black and white, high contrast andwith film grains). Overlapping the close-ups and adding moving polka dots to the background were to enrich the entertaining character of the picture and to unify the overall visual quality to the album cover.
I modelled a 3D lollipop with cow textured UV map corresponding to the title of the song. Series of rotation animation were made with C4D. The transparent sequences were used as a hint for transition of the video: falling from the sky, chasing band members, and eventually caght them up, and represents the end of this section of the video.
Inspired by Japanese Tokusatsu (such as Ultraman and Godzilla), we wanted to create similar visual effects as those tv-shows. Xiaowang is a band that has been active in Beijing all along, thus we have collected photos of those communism styled plate-residential buildings in Beijing, and placed band members into the buildings, just like monsters or ultramans in Tokusatsu shows to create a “funny” visual impacts.
The objects I matted earlier were animated in and out of frame, gradually getting smaller to enrich the picture and imply the fading /coming up ending of the video. The group portrait were also gradually getting smaller to correlate.
Green screen shooting
Rotating lollipop animation in C4D
Animating movments of each object
Green screen shooting (full-body)
Matting and editting in AE Lollipop falling from sky (AE)
Matting group portrait
Matting and editting in AE
Adding pink background outcome
Adding pink background outcome
Overlapping footages together
Overlapping buildings and band members
Part 1: close-ups
Part 3: lollipop modelling
Part 4: Flying objects
Part 2: moving in the “city”
This is a collaboration photo book project my friends: Shuwen, Yaya, and I did in 2021. The title of the photobook is “Have a Nice Dream”. After having a conversation about dreaming, we suddenly all realised that we all share the habbit of recording our dreams through texts for remembrance of these “false” memories.
Three of us each selected a few writings we had about our dreams, and a series of photographes we previously took which were related to the dreamy feelings and ambiguous themes. We then merged all of our works in a random order without any signatures to emphasis upon the confusing and illusory quality of dreams.
