List of Illustrations

Fig. 01 Zi Yang, Jiarui Barbecue, 2020, Photo.

Fig. 02 Chengan Xia, Aesthetic Career, 2018, Print, installation.

Fig. 03 Ibid.

Fig. 04 Ibid.

Fig. 05 Katherine McCoy, Poster, Cranbrook Graduate Program in Design, 1989, Offset lithograph.

Fig. 06 Jeffery Keedy, Poster, Cranbrook Graduate Studies in Fiber.

Fig. 07 Louis DeLuca, Two designs of ‘Learning from Las Vegas,’ 2017, Photo.

Fig. 08 Sticker advertisement, Photo.

Fig. 09 Jiayun Wang, Advertisement on subway grab handle, 2022, Photo.

Fig. 10 Chengsu Feng, Copy of the ‘Preface to The Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion,’ Calligraphy.

Fig. 11 Frontispiece, Diamond Sutra from Cave 17, Dunhuang, ink on paper., 868, Zoomable image from the British Library’s Online Gallery. Originally uploaded to en:Wikipedia (log) in January 2008 by Fconaway and in November 2009 by Earthsound.

Fig. 12 Two Name Seals, from Nengerzhai Print Collection.

Fig. 13 Yuanqing Tao, Wandering Book Cover Design, 1929.

Fig. 14 Zhifo Chen, Modern Student Cover Design, 1931.

Fig. 15 Juntao Qian, The Dividing Line in Love Cover Design, 1929.

Fig. 16 The Ark Cover Design, 1935.

Fig. 17 Juntao Qian, The Muddy Stream Cover Design, 1931.

Fig. 18 Propaganda Art Primer, 1967, Woodcut.

Fig. 19 Autumn Harvest Uprising, 1972.

Fig. 20 Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House Propaganda Poster Group, Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong Thought as a weapon, 1966.

Fig. 21 Shaohua Chen, Graphic Design in China 1992 Poster, 1992, Offset print.

Fig. 22 Henry Steiner, Poster for Morisawa Inc., 1991.

Fig. 23 Jiang Jun, Urban China Magazine Cover Design, 2005.

Fig. 24 Jianping He, Poster, China Image.

Fig. 25 Guang Yu, Young Nod, Tokyo TDC Selected Artworks 2018-2019 in Beijing NEWS Tokyo TDC, 2019.

Fig. 26 Yeshuyezhi Package Design (Front and Back).

Fig. 27 Jiashi Wang, Mud shield of a moped, 2022, Photo.

Fig. 28 Yui Takada, Diving Graphic, 2018.

Fig. 29 Yu Huang, Newspaper Advertisement Column, Photo.

Fig. 30 Bofeng Liao, Liao Flyer, 2018.

Fig. 31 Bofeng Liao, Name card for AGI in China, 2019.

Fig. 32 Ibid.

Fig. 33 Ibid.

Fig. 34 Ivy Yixue Li, On Being a Factory Worker, 2020.

Fig. 35 Celestial Dragons House, 2021.

Fig. 36 Jianping He, The East Wind prevails over the West Wind, 2019.

Fig. 37 Balenciaga Qixi Campaign, 2020.

Introduction

Perhaps it was pure novelty that attracted me to the New Ugly, but when I first saw part of Chengan Xia’s Aesthetic Career [Fig.02-04] at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's 2018 annual Art Fair, I was completely stunned by how unique, humorous, and critical it is. I grew up hating the style that overcrowded China’s visual landscape. I found it ugly, tacky, and not ‘high-art’ enough. Part of the reason that I aspired to be a graphic designer in the first place was to change that situation. Prior to college, I never thought a style that I used to despise and try to distance myself from could be such a powerful tool for irony and criticism. Since then, I have been obsessed with any work loosely related to the concept: the New Ugly, Anti-Design, and Digital Brutalism, to mention a few. To say that these styles or genres are mere trends is a fair statement, but I do not consider trends to be inherently meaningless. A genre is nothing but various movements, a movement but several trends. As I recognise the current of dissonant and critical design practice all around the world again, I feel responsible for assembling and reflecting upon them.

Graphic design as a profession is relatively new compared to other art and design practices, regardless of its prevalent use in daily life. However, much of the academic discussion still focuses on well-established Western discourse, while other cultures, most likely having a premodern design practice, remain neglected. In this dissertation, I included a brief yet comprehensive understanding of the history of Chinese graphic design hopefully in order to broaden the general discourse of graphic design history.

As a graphic designer trained and working in the West, I feel disconnected from the Chinese graphics design discourse, which is why I hope this dissertation could also be my way of reconnecting with my Chinese origins. While I had little access to local Chinese sources on this subject and did not have the opportunity to conduct field research during the writing of this essay due to obstacles from the Covid-19 pandemic, this dissertation is merely an iteration of a larger project which will develop both in depth and breadth in the future.

This dissertation’s main focus will be on mainland Chinese design history, as well as the works of designers from there. Yet, because of the historical, geographical, cultural, and linguistic proximity, it is inevitable to mention designers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. As Dr Wendy Suiyi Wong identified, the design history of these regions should not be divided, but rather united as ‘the Greater China Area,’ since the interaction between these entities cannot be extracted and studied separately.1

In Chinese there is an idiom PaoZhuanYinYu [抛砖引玉]. Literally translated to ‘throwing a brick to attract jade,’ the phrase means to offer one’s crude argument in hopes that it will further and deepen discourse. This paper aims to be the brick which inspires contemporary Chinese designers and scholars, as well as designers of other cultures to start constructing and participating critically in design discourse.

1. Wendy Siuyi Wong, ‘Detachment and Unification: A Chinese Graphic Design History in Greater China Since 1979’, Design Issues 17 (2001).

To call something ugly suggests you have an established range of preferences… This, as ever, returns us to the etymology of the world ‘ugly’ in the Norse ugga, meaning aggressive. Steven Bayley, Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything