Acknowledgement

Text&Design

Jiarui Wang

Edit

Cyrus Hung Hau Ng

Typefaces

PP Editorial New by PangramPangram

Anderson Grotesk by Stephen T.

French

FZ GaoYuanMingChao

FZ YaSong BN

FZFW ZhuZiHei by FounderType

First, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Thomas Watson, for his guidance throughout this dissertation.

I would not have been able to complete this project without my partner, Cyrus Hung Hau Ng, who always inspires and supports me, and for his generous editing work.

I'd like to thank my family, Zi Yang, Yikai Wang, Jiashi Wang, and Jiayun Wang, for their love and support for whatever I do.

Many thanks to my colleagues at the RCA, Chiao Huang, Haewon Jeon, and Wenjing Liu, for all the help and ideas they provided.

I'd also like to mention my dear friends, Yilin Chen, Shiqing Zhu, Zhengkang Liang, Tiger Sun, Owen (Ruijie) Rao, Nanyun Shen, Frank Hou, Chen Nie, Tong Tong, Nicole Ru Tsai, Brian (Hsueh-Hung) Cheng, and Marie (Zihan) Yang, for their spiritual support.

A special thank you to Chengan Xia who allowed me to include images of his amazing work, Aesthetic Career

If not specified, all the references originally in Chinese are translated by me. (Source: I'm Chinese.)

Dissonance is the technical term for the reception through art of what aesthetics as well as naïveté calls ugly. Whatever it may be, the ugly must constitute, or be able to constitute, an element of art.

Theodor

W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

Keywords

Aesthetics

China

Class Consciousness

Design History

Graphic Design

Abstract

The New Ugly is a graphic design aesthetic which originated from Chinese vernacular commercial styles. Since around 2018, the style has gained a cult following in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Graphic design, despite its ubiquitous influence in everyday life as well as its artistic potential, is a relatively overlooked practice in academic discourse. This dissertation aims to provide the reader with historic theories regarding ugliness, Chinese graphic design history, as well as cultural context to better understand why the New Ugly has revolutionary potential for graphic design. Other topics include the historic origins, the power dynamics behind the formation, as well as the commercial misuse of the New Ugly.

These findings indicate a need to redefine and diversify the way graphic design is taught, for a more global and class-conscious view towards design, as well as a more critical position against the commercialisation of styles for advertising.

(Abstract word count: 150)