Why Design

WHY DESIGN XIAOLING CAI neu17

WHY DESIGN XIAOLING CAI neu17

CONTENT PERSONAL COLLECTION

MFA WORKS GD WORKS

top left – portable scissors top right – corner punch bottom left – cat memo stickers bottom right – clock sticky memo

MUJI

MUJI (無印良品) stationery design My MUJI collection journey starts with its stationeries, I think so do many people.

But when I was a child, I won’t consider buying MUJI products because of its minimalist appearances. I used to collect colorful rubber erasers that varied in many shapes and smells; a strawberry-like eraser that smells actually like a real fruit. Kids always love colors and are attracted by smells and abnormal shapes of things, but MUJI does the opposite way by keeping things ordinary and simple.

Until I claimed my to major graphic design in the pre-college program, I was fascinated by its neat appearances and its “extraordinariness out of ordinary”, which means that to make something simple is relatively easy, but to keep everything consistently simple is quite a challenge.

Through its generic and unique label and patterns, MUJI has succeeded in producing staples, kitchenware, household products, luggage, packed foods, textiles, and even furniture, and they all look pleasingly well-designed. To me, MUJI is like a fantasy land, where I can buy almost everything for life and I will feel super

happy and satisfied as I keep everything overwhelmingly neat and well-organized.

Speaking of MUJI stationery, I like its sense of playfulness based on the simple forms, such as cat-memo, pen-like portable scissors, clock stickers, and mini corner punch (images show on the left). Bear with MUJI’s stationeries, I found study life no longer tedious and too serious, those cute little things actually enrich my academic days and nights, and also empower me to want to become a designer that able to please and enlighten ordinary life through simple and neat fantasies; and fantasy is the basis for the best marketing, no wonder I never blame myself for overspending money while shop at MUJI.

Name of each enthic group and its geographical distribution (from left to right) – Salar 撒拉族 (Qinghai-Gansu border region) Han 汉族 (mostly every province, the majority group of Chinese) Gaoshan 高山族 (Taiwan)

Chinese postage stamps (56 ethnic groups) I still remember how excited I was when my father gave me a book of stamps as a birthday gift, which is a commemorative yearbook of the celebration for millennium year and the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the PRC (1949-1999). To be honest, I was too little to know how politically and culturally significant the yearbook is since I was so fascinated by those beautiful stamps; and I still think that is the best birthday gift ever from my dad. And since then, I gradually saw collecting stamps as my new small habit.

The “56 Ethnic Groups” is one of the most amazing pages in the 1999 stamp yearbook, and instead of demonstrating stamp by stamp, it is displayed as a page-like board that composed by 56 stamps together and people are able to rip each down. As said by my father, this set of stamps cost 10 years from design to production, which was quite rare among the published stamps in China, and the postage bureau even has grouped the “9956 Project” team in order to accomplish the design mission.

STAMPS Name of each enthic group and its geographical distribution (from top left to bottom right) – Russ 俄罗斯族 (Xinjiang, inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang) Dai 傣族 (Yunnan) Hui 回族 (Northwestern regions) Miao 苗族 (Guizhou) Tujia 土家族 (borders of Hunan, Hubei, and Guizhou) Zhuang 壮族 (Guangxi) Koreans 朝鲜族(Northeastern regions)

Moreover, because of the fascinating yearbook, I not only learned to know China as a unified, multi-national country with 56 diverse ethnics but also became interested in understanding the profound ethnic cultures and characteristics that live behind the stamps. Each stamp illustrates a pair of male and female wearing traditional costumes that represent the unique culture of that ethnic group and also performing traditional dancing.

The reason why this set of stamps is extremely important to me as a design

student is that it activates my ultimate goal that is to join and help on promoting the cultural significance of my country like the designers of “56 Ethnic Groups” one day in future, and I hope I can accomplish my goal.

LINE FRIENDS

LINE FRIENDS (from left to right) – Boss/Mister (an almost completely bald middle-aged man with glasses.

Cony (a rabbit with a pleasant personality, she likes to go on a diet) Moon (a manju-shaped-headed man who loves the moon) Brown (a bear who likes salmon a lot, he is silent, and has a crush on Cony) James (a narcissist with long, blonde hair; he is obsessed with his appearance, and is afraid of high places) Sally (a chick who usually helps her friends; she likes karaoke) Jessica (a cat who is knowledgable about fashion and loves to cook a lot)

STICKERS

Moon – one of the default stickers

I always love to collect stickers and paste them all over my house, which causes me serious troubles many times from my parents. As I passed my “evil” kid and adolescent years, I systematically started to “decorate” my dining table and chairs with stickers I bought and took from retail stores, rather than sticking them everywhere; also, in order to not let my house full of stickers, I express my passion for the other way — buy virtual stickers online, and LINE is definitely a good place for me to perform my talent.

LINE is a freeware app for instant communications on e-devices, where users can exchange texts, images, and videos with added friends. Based on the chatting function, LINE features a Sticker Shop where users are able to use the default stickers on some characters and to purchase virtual stickers depicting more well-known characters. As shown by the image, these 7 default characters called “Boss (the middle-aged man), Cony (the bunny), Moon (the human-like figure), Brown (the bear), James (the blonde man), Sally (the yellow chick), and Jessica (the cat)”, and they all look uniquely different from users’ various interests of using such large-sized emoji.

Other than using the LINE-designed stickers, users are even still able to buy licenses and download all other cartoon characters that incorporate with the LINE platform, such as Disney, Hello Kitty, and so on. The reason why I love using LINE as my main social media tool compare to other platforms (Messengers, WeChat, WhatsApp) is its design consistency on not only the layout, typographies, experiential logics but also the cute and playful brandidentifying stickers that help to build the whole ideologies and fantasies behind the platform.

As LINE constantly became popular among Asia and cross-Pacific, there are also numerous physical stores opened in a response of the well-known LINE characters, featuring from stationery, household goods to fashion. Being one of the biggest friends of LINE, its retail store also has become my favorite places to go like MUJI; that’s the biggest success of LINE, a freeware app that is still able to produce billions of values.

top – each little tea bag is packaged by a boutique shopping bag with name and nutritions printed. middle left – golden bud, one of the tea types of the collection, is designed in a lady’s fashion bag. middle right – designer is holding one of the tea bags called golden bud. bottom – the following package designs of the Teabag collection, including gift box and tableware.

KOREFE - the tea bag collection Collecting tea bags seems like a strange habit to hear (I only collect packed tea bags), but I see it as my entrance to the elementary food and package design study. Unlike fresh foods, designers don’t have to face the ultimate challenges of perishability and flavors, but the real question is how to keep away from liquids and other humid environments over years and still able to keep the most authentic flavors. Here, packaging plays the most significant role; and KOREFE, has made it a level beyond — they designed petite fashion bags.

The famous German tea trader HÄLSSEN LYON has looked for new ways to prepare and present tea; this time, they have incorporated with the local design studio KOREFE and fashion designer Ayzit Bostan on innovating and creating the first Teabags that look and feel like the iconic

designer handbags. This limited edition of tea bags features five different brews of tea in five varied package designs that people can easily enjoy the beautiful look of the tea bag while also be ready to please by the cup of tea.

Unfortunately I did not get the chance to own this wonderful collection of Teabags since it is designed as a return for company’s longstanding partners, but its innovating process fully present my admiration of successful food package design; an excellent package design of food should not only help preserve the best taste of the content but also deliver the unique food culture through playful and meaningful appearances. I think that is the magic of design – to make something a daily basis full of joy and surprise.

TEA BAGS

London skyline (from left to right) – The Shard, Tower Bridge, The Gherkin, Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), London Eye

POSTCARDS

Enisaurus city postcards I have a very romantic sister who always sends me postcards wherever she traveled to, but I feel sad that I barely send postcards to her while I travel; and I don’t remember since when I started collecting postcards, maybe it is from my sister. The size of a standard postcard is 4.25”x6”(in), very similar to the size of a small photo, which is 4”x6” (in).

With that frame, designers of city postcards are able to incorporate the best images (usually as photographs) without struggling with cropping issues. And this time, the famous illustrator Enisaurus, has made it graphic arts (as shown on the left panel).

About the project called City Postcards, Enisaurus has created a unique and consistent style of postcard series featuring five amazing cities he has visited or wish to visit in one day. As the two examples show, the designer is very talented on experimenting with the geometrical elements, using bold lines and simplifying shapes to illustrate the most representational features of the city, such as London Eye and Tokyo Skytree. The back side is composed of the consistent layout of writing lines and stamp area,

Tokyo skyline (from left to right) – The Rainbow Bridge, Sensoji Temple, Skytree, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, Nakagin Capsule Tower, Toyko Tower

with the varied name of the cities and a dashed line underneath that indicates the thematic color of that postcard.

The reason why I love this set of city postcard the most, is because they look way prettier than the one I found at souvenir stores and I like how Enisaurus present his design with his cute and unique style of illustrations; however, a well-designed postcard does not has to be fantastically beautiful, but at least it should play a dual role that not only evokes people’s travel histories in that city but also attracts new people to want to come visit.

left – Doug Liddle guitar instruction bottom - Denia Salu tennis academic

NAME CARDS

Doug Liddle & Denia Salu There is a saying that name card is a person’s face, which means that it directly implies a person’s presence while under a corporate environment. But as the trend that more and more people start printing cards as a representational object of their occupation, contact info, and etc, we would like to call the generic definition of “name card” instead of business card, which sort of being given a limitation of certain business occurrence.

I collect name cards, but at first, to show respect to the people who gave me their name cards; it is always not good to throw them into the trash can, and to me, it feels like I am kicking someone’s “face” or “reputation” (I also not throw away red envelopes after taking out lucky money after Chinese Spring Festival for the same reason, it feels like not respecting the “fortune god”). It may sound quite a superstition, but if I know someone threw my name card into a random trash can; I would be upset.

As I gradually collect books after books of name cards, I started loving to collect them. Each little card not only represents a person’s unique characteristics by its content but also illustrates that person’s professional features by more aspects

of striking visual design. Doug Liddle, a guitar instructor, has commissioned St. Bernadine Mission Communication Inc. to design their stunning business cards, which introduce the fun of learning to play the guitar within moments of holding them; at the front of the cards are nice and clean contact info of certain instructors, and the top left end indicates that the chord diagram belongs to C major.

Moreover, another example shows name card can be playful as the designers created the tennis court business card for Denia Salu Tennis Academy. The card is handed while folded in half, and when opened, it becomes a full tennis court and the front side is the generic contact info for a certain tennis coach. More surprisingly, the design team even made two models of clay (orange) and hard (green) courts.

Sadly I don’t have their cards to know which color may be used under certain administrations, but the ideas of designing 3D mini name cards are full of joy, which makes me quite interested in attending tennis classes.

bottom – the puff tabby cat model is wearimg Zen Fish Charm Cat Collar (blue)

Necoichi I am not sure whether I am the only one who always complains about how ugly the cat collars are sold at pet stores in a serious way; so I have to look up goods online and Amazon for some good inspirations.

Unlike dogs, cats usually don’t like to be put clothes on and they even feel uncomfortable especially when their parents like to cosplay them, and I used to be one of those evil cat parents.

After knowing how cats love being “naked” and how they hate to wear things just for human fun, I have stopped my “evil” pleasure of seeing my cat wear costumes

like Christmas deer, pirate, and even kimonos. As a result of supporting the statement of not-pushing-cat-to-wearcostumes, the cat collar seems like the only identification of not only my cat but also all the other cats, whose parents also support such statement. Hence, selecting the right collar becomes a serious mission to complete.

Necoichi, which I knew them from Amazon while shop for cat’s collar, is a Japan-designed cat supplies firm that demonstrates many worth-buying lines of cat’s collars, and each of them well

CAT’S COLLAR

top – the gray tabby cat model wears Daruma Charm Bow Tie Cat Collar (red)

relates to the Japanese aesthetics of floral patterns and Zen styles. As image shows, the cream tabby cat wears the Zen style collar in a bow shape, with a cute fish-like charm that comes with a metallic pill inside of the charm. Another example also shows the Japanese element cat collar with little cute Daruma doll charm and a separated bell linked on the other side of the necklace.

Hence, Necoichi is a good design modal for cat supplies, and of course, I bought a lot of merchandises on Necoichi since I have not found any brand that is able to

beat them. Indeed, pet supplies industry is rapidly becoming popular among the market; it is undeniable that the pet supplies industry is also getting bigger as I think the design on its products should also catch the pace as its industrial growth.

So the trend of pet supplies design and my current problems of not finding what I really want for my cat makes me want to participate and be involved into the future evaluation process.

FLIGHT TICKETS

top – the current design of Cathat Pacific boarding pass middle – the process step of ticket redesign bottom – the redesign prototype

Cathay Pacific boarding pass To be honest, I don’t like air travel, especially when I have to take overnight flights back to China at least once a year. And since the day I attended to Northeastern, I started collecting flight tickets every time I travel back to home and on vacations, and those tickets are like stamps on my visa pages that witness my different journeys from time to time.

quite making senses. Then, the first transformation shows only black and white with the clear indication of wayfinding and schedule. And the further improvement applies the color elements and a variety of type sizes to show the importance of information. But it is still not a perfect design solution but a perfect proposal of changing toward a better design.

Since I decided to talk about flight tickets on my collection project, I dug out so many papers of the boarding pass and then found out they all look confusing in terms of wayfinding to the correct gate and all the texts are monochromatically ugly. Here, I want to talk about one of the most airlines I have traveled with – Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong carried airline company, and I am glad that someone already did the redesign mockups as I looked for images online (as shown by the two images).

Although flying is not a very pleasing experience for me, but the redesign mission of boarding pass is always been an interesting project, as it tells a good story from origin to the destination and keeps a good memory of every journey.

The top image is the actual layout of the boarding pass that Cathay Pacific is using, is not quite terrible at the first glance; but if look closely, some types are being printed off the girds and in various sizes, and the only colors shown on the design are for logos and classes, which are not

MEMBER CARD

top – leaf-shaped card for special autumn editions with hole punched to carry with key set

top – plastic card design for teachers

Starbucks I am not sure am I the only strange person often steal their cards while I only shop for coffee, but those cards are so beautiful that I can’t control myself well to not take them. One time, I went to Starbucks at the Boylston Street and was too nervous about taking their cards without asking for permission, a barista saw my worries and said that “don’t worry about taking them, it’s all yours. The cards are designed for gift options, and the card itself can also be a gift”. Since then, I release my stress and take one when I see some new comings at the counter.

The consistent illustration style with unique and identical Starbucks cup are invented to use on varied occasions, including holidays, birthday, workplace, and so on. Mostly the card form is rectangular and plastic texture (as shown on top); later, I see different shapes of some new cards. For example, the image on the left shows the cards in leaf shape, which is for the special autumn edition.

Moreover, there are also smaller scale designed to carry with key sets and also different texture design for campaigns like eco-friendly.

The design of Starbucks Card is originally given for not only as a gift option for people to send out e-credits but also as a member card for the receivers of the gift to register their information as an archive for order preferences and customer relations.

However, what I did here is quite not as they implied, but they did successfully introduce their coffee culture through various card designs.

The reason why there are so many new styles and designs of Starbucks card coming out is not really just depending on the sales of those cards, but many people like me enjoy collecting them. I see it as the new culture of Starbucks, and it makes coffee shopping more interesting and friendly speaking.

MFA WORKS

this work is currently not on view, accession number 2009.5101

BiNACA by Niklaus Stoecklin, 1941 The reason why I am especially in favor of this piece of art is the work itself more than looking like a commercial work, but also the work of art as well. I actually have seen this poster in real life is at the MoMA (although MFA also has a copy of the poster), and I was fascinated by its realness and pureness as a painting. At the first glance, I thought it is a studio photograph, however, the refraction of the brush through glass is not quite realistic and as well as the view of the position of the glass through the human eyeball. Other than that, it maximizes the viewable angles and position in order to reach the maximization of the readability of its advertised product – the BiNACA toothpaste.

The poster art is done by the Swiss painter Niklaus Stoecklin, whose style is heavily influenced Ludwig Holwein (a German poster artist) and the Purist style of the Swiss architect and designer Le Corbusier. Based on Stoecklin’s artistic background, the photographic quality of the painting also suggests his marriage with the airbrush and lithography printing techniques, making the poster possible to be mass-produced among the ‘30s and ‘40s marketing demands.

To me, I think the use of bright color and the quiet background is brilliant in terms of enriching the texture of the object and also highlighting the brand BiNACA. Sadly when I try to shop their dental products on their website, I felt down by their current advertisements compare to the one I am discussing at this moment. Hopefully, people can see more artistic designs on BiNACA in near future since they did a really good job in the past.

MFA WORKS

this work is currently not on view, accession number 56.1190

Aristide Bruant in his Cabaret by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893 The Aristide Bruant in His Cabaret is a lithographic print (same as the BiNACA poster) done by the famous French postImpressionist and Art Nouveau Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, one of the biggest fans of 19th Japonisme especially ukiyo-e prints. Despite the fact that this print is done by stone rather than woodblock, the linear style of the figure in an abstract form and a limited palette of colors is quite told

by Japanese influences. Here, the linear shape and form are dominating the whole artwork, so do many of his other printed posters, which are being fully represented by how Lactrec’s intelligent incorporation of Western and Eastern art and aesthetics onto the relatively new inventions of massproducing lithography techniques.

The political side of the painting also tells a good story about the starting of globalization trend on cultural identity and exchange, as can be told by Lautrec and many others Western painters, people especially artists are more opened to new

things and new adventures as they express their passion through accepting them and presenting them in a newborn French way rather than imitating the originals.

There is a cultural border between countries, but art is a totally different speaking. I really love this poster for so many reasons. First, the artist Lautrec’s two distinct styles on paintings and posters indicate his heavily love on the new culture and also new techniques.

Moreover, I really love the French-Japan idea of the poster that not only its flat black cloak gives people room of imagination of Bruant’s theatrical persona but also its composition delivers an advanced idea of the new aesthetic standard. Lastly, I personally see this poster as a model of openness toward new adventures.

top – old Chinese design of Coca-Cola before 2003 bottom – new Chinese design of Coca-Cola logo by Hong Kong designer Alan Chan in 2003

可口可乐 (Coca-Cola) The logo design story of Coca-Cola in Chinese is always an inspiring example to me as a design discipline. Coco-Cola now is an international brand of beverages that lives in every corner on earth; and when it comes to logo design in different languages, Coco-Cola strongly emphasizes the importance of localization and “happy”, an emotional word and a content delivery through logo design which they hope to psychologically unify the cultural differences between each region.

When Coca-Cola was about to enter China in 1927, people were confused by the Chinese sound of Coca-Cola; many of them even pronounced “KeDou-Kenla” (蝌蚪啃

蜡 – in direct translation of tadpole biting wax), which was quite affecting the sales market among the regions. Therefore, Coca-Cola was facing a challenge of finding a solution of name that not only fits the local culture but also able to be accepted by the mass. The company has hired a famous translator Yee Chiang to help in developing its translation, and after a long amount of time of thinking and rethinking, Chiang came out a name of alliteration and assonance called “Kekou-Kele” (可口 可乐) that not only keeps the maximized pronunciation of the original “Coca-Cola” but also is given a better ideology of delivering a drinking experience that full of joy and happiness.

GD WORKS top – new logo design by Alan Chan in 2003 printed on bottle

Its logo redesign does not happen until 2003 when the Hong Kong graphic designer Alan Chan was invited to innovate the Chinese logo of 可口可乐. The original logotype was a traditional Chinese setting that illustrates a blocky and serious feeling of logo demonstration (as shown in the left-top image), and based on the previous setting of the Chinese logotype, Alan Chan has combined the unique feature of Spencerian script used in the original logo of Coca-Cola and the preset blocky Chinese type into a wavier and fluid setting (as shown on the left-bottom image). This is a brand new design of Chinese Coca-Cola logo since their reentry to the Chinese market since 1979 as they

left in 1949, more than being seen as a successful design example, I think it is also an excellent model of designing culture and ideology that live behind the brand.

GD WORKS

top – water box design in 3 sizes: small (250ml), medium (500ml), and large (1000ml) bottom left – design of a pack of 8 small size water bottom right – design of a pack of 8 medium size boxes

Boxed Water package deisgn Package design is always my big interest, as I am always amazed by those good designs, and Boxed Water is one of the good examples. My first impression of Boxed Water is the way they package water, since bottled water is the most common form we see in the market, and I was attracted to buy a box of water while I shopped at Whole Foods.

Although I first think the package design of Boxed Water is quite successful in terms of distinguish the brand from the many with simple and unique design of a milk box, which easily makes their product relate to the idea of hydrating, nourishing, or even milking, now I think this is the power of packaging and also of what packaging has given impression on us. Another excellent theory Boxed Water has developed is their ethics of designing the box package – better packaging for the better planet.

By designing the box container, designers have used 74% renewable raw materials of paper (box body), 20% of plastic (cap and glue), and 6% of aluminum (inner wrap), to produce a nice single individual of them.

Maybe we may think reducing consumption of bottled water shall be the most immediate action to develop, but very fact is there are actual demands on consuming them. Bottled water is convenient, but the way producing it isn’t.

There is no absolute solution to invent a zero-pollution of packaging materials but make it sustainable is another way of environmental protection. The packaging materials of Boxed Water is mainly paper from trees, so they take their responsibility quite seriously and enact the ”Retree Project” that aims to plant a million trees in the response of their consumption while producing paper container.

This is the theory of Boxed Water and also a theory of successful packaging solution.

Sustainable packaging is definitely not a project or an invention that only designers should get involved, but here, designers are playing significant roles in promoting the idea of sustainable consumerism. Hence, the example of Boxed Water is a lesson to me to think of our social roles as designers.

references 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13

http://www.muji.com/us/ http://www.chinapost.com.cn/ https://www.linefriends.com/ http://www.korefe.de/haelssen-and-lyon-x-ayzit-bostan-the-teabag-collection http://www.enisaurus.com/portfolio/items/city-postcards/ Dog Liddle Guitar Instruction business card – https://www.stbernadine.com/ Denia Salu Tennis Academic business card – http://publicis.com.br/ https://www.necoichi.com/ https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_US.html https://www.starbucks.com/card http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/binaca-531697 http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/aristide-bruant-in-his-cabaret-165327 Coca-Cola Chinese logo design – https://www.alanchandesign.com/ https://boxedwaterisbetter.com/