ShanshanChenPortfolio

THIS PORTFOLIO CONTAINS THE WORKS OF SHANSHAN CHEN

CONTENT 1.1 INVESTIGATING OF THE BASICS: COMPOSITION 1.2 INVESTIGATING OF THE BASICS: COLORS 2.1 BOOK DESIGN: ACROSS THE DYNASTIES 2.2 REINTERPRETATION OF CHEONGSAM 3

REDESIGN: FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE

4.1 SELF IDENTITY 4.2 SELF-BRANDING 5

THE TASTE IN MEMORY

6.1 LOGO DESIGN FOR USC CSA 6.2 LOGO DESIGN FOR NEW MOON HIGH JEWELRY

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EVENT VISUAL SUPPORTS FOR USC CSA

8.1 PHOTOGRAPHY: LONELINESS AND LONGINGS 8.2 PHOTOGRAPHY: THE CHINESE GROCERY STORE 8.3 PHOTOGRAPHY: A TYPICAL AFTERNOON 9

JEWELRY CABINET

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SELF-PORTRAITS

11 WITHIN, WITHOUT 12 DISTORTION OF SPACE 13 JEWELBET 14 BANANA PANCAKE RECEIPE 15 PERSONAL WEBSITE

1.1 INVESTIGATING OF THE BASICS: COMPOSITION

5 Pieces of 8x8 inches Guache, Paper Carving | 2013 Investigating shape, composition, tension and movement using black and white Guache, paper and Exacto knife.

Top: Nightmare and Sweet Dream (Antonym, Symmetry, Asymmetry); Middle: Rose in Lightbox (shades); Bottom: Modern vs Traditional (Asymmetry and Movement, Symmetry and Tension)

1.2 INVESTIGATING OF THE BASICS: COLORS

3 Pieces of 10x 10 inches Guache, Paper Carving | 2013 Originated from primary colors: red, yellow and blue, yet it observes many possibilities created by various hues and shades of the primary colors. The colors are arranged to show dimensionality of the broken pieces of the face and the different personalities of a same face.

2.1 BOOK DESIGN: ACROSS THE DYNASTIES

Across The Dynasties COVER

8x8 inches Indesign | 2014 Book design studying the typical Chinese traditional dresses across different time period. I intentionally designed the book like a textbook because of its formative characteristic. I designed the cover as the Chinese traditional collar. All the contents and original picture materials were from the internet and were re-edited.

Digital version: http://issuu.com/shanshan4/docs/across_the_dynasties

2.2 REINTERPRETATION OF CHEONGSAM

18x8 inches Illustrator | 2015 Cheongsam is a type of Chinese traditional dress that was regarded as fashionable and trendy by socialites and upper class women in the 1920s in Shanghai, China. However, most of young people nowadays in China think Cheongsam and traditional Chinese elements out-of-date. Western style clothing is very welcomed by the young Chinese people because of the casualty. Cheongsam is rarely seen in ordinary occasions unless there is a special performance, like traditional Chinese dance. I personally like Cheongsam because of its delicacy and complicated craft. I used the important elements of Cheongsam, button, curving shape and traditional Chinese patterns, to rebrand it to a type of modern, fashionable, trendy and casual clothing style.

3 REDESIGN: FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE

40x27 inches Illustrator | 2014 I redesigned the poster of the film “Farewell My Concubine” to deliver a better understanding of the synopsis and central idea of the film to the audience. I focused on the film’s main idea - loss of identity. By acting a female character on the stage, Douzi, the main character in the film, was confused about his gender identity. I designed the poster with Douzi’s two looks: his own look (left) and his performance look (right) to show both of his identities. With an emotionless facial expression, I wanted to show that he was suffering from the confusion of his identities in the film.

4.1 SELF IDENTITY

14x7 inches Illustrator | 2015 An illustration represented myself as a designer. Born and raised in China, I am enthusiastic about Chinese culture. Chinese people always refer themselves as descendants of the dragon, so do I. The girl wearing the traditional Chinese opera costume in the illustration represents myself. However, the hairstyle and makeup are modern. This contrast shows that I am influenced by Chinese culture and traditions, and I apply them a lot with modern reinterpretation in my design works. I am also influenced by the western culture because I studied in the United States. I only used colors of red and blue in this illustration since these two colors are both in the national flags of China and the United States. The girl is charging with electrical wires with eyes closed, indicating that I am acquiring knowledge and experience of design continuously to become a successful designer.

4.2 SELF BRANDING

11x8.5 inches | 7x2 inches | 16x9 inches Illustrator | 2014 I created myself a set of business card, letterhead and envelope as a graphic designer. The birds represent myself. The caged birds represented my background, growing up in a stiff environment.

However, I decided to change and continue fighting for my dream when I found design was actually my real interest. So I created colorful flying birds to represent my current status. I designed a folded business card which could be opened in the middle of the birdcage at the front to show the colorful flying birds inside of the card.

5 VISUAL SUPPORTS FOR “THE TASTE IN MEMORY” CAMPAIGN

Illustrator | 2015 Visual supports for “The Taste in Memory” campaign as an intern at Wenzhou Yiyuan Internet Technology Co., Ltd in Summer, 2015.

6.1 LOGO DESIGN FOR USC CSA

Illustrator | 2012 “USC CSA Logo” is the official logo of Chinese Student Association (CSA) at University of Southern California. It intended to build a sense of home and harbor for Chinese students studying at USC. The round shape represents happiness and reunion in Chinese. The letters of “C” and “S” mimic a Chinese Dragon which Chinese people usually refer themselves as the descendants of. The “Chinese Dragon” entwines with the letter “A” that represents a house and a base because of its triangle shape. I used the colors of USC, cardinal and gold, indicating that the organization is based at USC, which shares the same spirits: faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous, and ambitious.

6.2 LOGO DESIGN FOR NEW MOON HIGH JEWELRY

Illustrator | 2015 This design originated from two Chinese characters, meaning the first day of the lunar month. It is a luxurious brand based in China that dedicated to customizing high-end jewelry and delivering delicate lifestyle.

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EVENT VISUAL SUPPORTS FOR USC CSA

4 Pieces of 3.5x2.5 inches Photoshop | 2013 “Poker Tickets” is a ticket design for 2013 USC CSA Halloween Party. I wanted to design something more than a ticket. I got the inspiration from the party theme “Wonderland”. The tickets mimic pokers which is an important element in the story “Alice in Wonderland”. The General Admission, VIP, VVIP and Guest lists are separated into J, Q, K and Joker. In order to let the participants get excited and feel more immersed into the party, I created a short invitation letter in the middle of the pokers as the owner of the “Wonderland”.

Photoshop, Illustrator | 2013-2015 Part of the event posters I designed for the events hosted by USC Chinese Student Association.

Most of the graphic materials originated from the internet. They were greatly re-edited using tools of Photoshop and Illustrator with unique typography to create visual supports that stand out from other organizations’ posters to attract participants to the events.

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EVENT VISUAL SUPPORTS FOR USC CSA

8.1 PHOTOGRAPHY: LONELINESS AND LONGINGS

3 Pieces of 20x13 inches Photography, Archival inkjet prints | 2015 This set of photos tell my friend’s real experience. She born in a wealthy family. However, her parents were too busy to accompany her when she was a child. She was left in her home alone everyday without any friends. Although her parents bought her a lot of toys and bunnies, she still felt lonely.

After a long time, she became afraid of communicating with people. I shot this set of photos to show her loneliness in her inner world and her longings toward outside world.

8.2 PHOTOGRAPHY: THE CHINESE GROCERY STORE

3 Pieces of 36x23.4 in | 6 Pieces of 18x11.7 in Photography, Archival inkjet prints | 2015 “The Chinese Grocery Store” is a photography project exploring American Born Chinese’ confusion of their cultural identity. One of my friends who grew up in the America once told me that she was in an awkward situation. She could not be able to balance both of her cultural identities. With inspiration from Rineke Dijkstra’s portraits series of teenagers and young adults at the beach, I took family portraits in a Chinese grocery store to show the awkwardness. I was interested in people’s psychological reactions facing the camera under their unnatural poses and facial expressions. I also took photos of food that could not be found in the regular American grocery stores, like chicken feet and black silky chicken to express the awkwardness.

8.3 PHOTOGRAPHY: A TYPICAL AFTERNOON

2 Pieces of 25x17 inches Photography, Archival inkjet prints | 2015 I love taking photos of daily life scenes using an unexpected perspective. They are casual but unique.

In this set of photos, a dried lemon in the fridge and a fat men lying on the bed seemed having no connections. However, using light, color tone and composition, I connected them together, like they were mimicking each other.

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JEWELRY CABINET

18x12 inches Handmade | 2014 I used to put my jewelries in a box. However, I found that I had too many jewelries to organize in a box. Therefore, I made myself a small cabinet using foam board and black velvet to place my jewelries and perfumes. I chose foam board because of its light weight and penetrated characteristic, which allowed me to pin my earrings on the board directly. I sewed the velvet on the foam board because I wanted the velvet wrinkled that can reflect light from different directions and it was more secure than glue.

10 SELF PORTRAITS

12 Pieces of 10x10 inches Photography, Interaction| 2015 Chinese girls have been obsessed by using beauty cam and photo editing apps to take selfies on social media. Many of them were criticized that they looked exactly the same in photos with big eyes, small faces and pointed chins. These girls were not satisfied with their looks in the real world.

I believed every person looks different, which makes he or she unique and beautiful. Moreover, every person also looks different in different people’s eyes. This project investigated how I really looks from my own perspective and others’ perspectives. I took more than 100 photos of myself with different facial expressions and cut them into four pieces per photo and shuffled the randomly. I asked my friends who knew me well to select four pieces that they believed most represented me and to composite them together into a complete face. The upper image shows the details of the whole collection. The lower image is the installation of the project.

PROCESS

11 WITHIN, WITHOUT

4x7x5 feet Photography, Installation | 2015 “Within, Without” is an installation project dedicated to express the turmoil of desires in my heart and obstacles in the reality. I sometimes lost my direction of moving forward when I was overwhelmed by the depression of failing to achieve my goal. There is a Chinese saying “The outsiders see most of the game”. I realized later if I had calmed down and stepped out of the situation, I could have been able to find the balance between my goal and limitations in reality. I took photos of my back to show my inner world desires. When I lost my desires and directions, I could not be able to position myself; the back was the part of my body that I could not see. The photos of the buildings represented the obstacles I met in the reality because they looked callous, like the big monuments standing on the road. Within the photo installation, everything could not be seen clearly. However, if standing outside of the installation, everything could be seen clearly.

12 DISTORTION OF SPACE

10 x 8 inches Photography, Photoshop, InDesign | 2015 “Distortion of Space� is a project aimed to show emotional tension and confusion of reality by spatial distortion, repeated overwhelming objects, large amount of alerting colors like red and yellow and tiny reflected figures. All photos were taken on the stairwell at Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Digital version: https://issuu.com/shanshan4/docs/distortion_of_space/1

13 JEWELBET

18x11 inches Photography, Photoshop | 2015 I personally love collecting jewelries. I was inspired by one of my bracelet’s shape “letter D” and wanted to discover more letters in my jewelry box. I enjoyed creating alphabets by discovering different shapes of one jewelry and grouping various jewelries together.

14 BANANA PANCAKE RECEIPE

I personally love cooking. I wanted to make a recipe that was interesting and useful with moving to specific steps conveniently. Therefore, I designed this banana pancake recipe webpage using scrolling JQuery from the open sourced lab. I drew all the visual elements in Illustrator.

Link to the website: http://fadn303.net/chenshan/pages/scrollingeffect.html Vimeo demonstration: https://vimeo.com/151737516

15 PERSONAL WEBSITE

HTML5, CSS | 2015 I designed a website for myself using HTML5, CSS and JQuery. I wanted it to be simple but interesting. I added page transitioning animation to four directions using JQuery from open sourced lab.

I also added animation on my personal logo at the center with mouse hovering on it. With more and more people accessing smartphones, I also made the site mobile friendly using media query.

Link to the website:http://shanshanchenc.github.io/