The "Legend" of Chinese Character Visual Art in Chinese Graphic Design (5)

Fives. Chinese Modern Graphic Design and Chinese Characters

The inheritance of civilization is no more than the requirement of the ancient people to impart knowledge and inherit worship and belief for future generations.

In addition to Chinese characters, if we let us wander through the promenade of the history of Chinese arts and crafts, we will find that Chinese people's various artistic expressions in the plane seem to have achieved higher and more achievements, and are also the most oriental representative of art. Form, here I will call them flat art. Chinese graphic art has played an invaluable role in inheriting Chinese civilization.

From rock paintings and symbols in ancient times, to patterns and characters on bronze ware, to Oracle, Jinwen, Jane Sui and Hua Xia’s conscious expression methods, they can be compared to the fish in the water and use the tail fins to sway until they climb. The land has evolved into a primate and begins to walk on two legs. On the one hand, it is the evolution of the graphic to the symbol and gradually becomes the system of the writing system. On the other hand, it is the evolution of the figure to the art of decoration and the art of drawing. Chinese characters and paintings have fruitful results in Chinese graphic arts (herein referred to as creations in two-dimensional space, all related to the use of Chinese characters); on the surfaces of objects, architectural decorations, murals, Inscriptions and stone carvings, as well as pure art and practical art forms such as seals, Chinese paintings, and various books, interact with each other.

From the time when he began to try to record his thoughts and life, Huaxia ancestors were already trying to use the graphic tool. In the chaos of the beginning stage, the figure is like the tail fin used by the fish to move forward. The ancestors use them to express their thoughts and feelings, such as getting fish. After the caudal fins evolved into legs-characters and paintings, the descendants wanted to use the combination of graphics and text to express a certain or implicit, or mysterious, or ambiguous emotions and consciousness, in pursuit of the magic created by ancient ancestors.

Humans have been trying hard to find a way to use visual symbols to express thoughts and emotions. This method should be able to use graphical symbols to store their own memory, and it is a simple way to programmatically convey information. From the invention of Chinese characters to the simple books, these are the representatives of the results of such efforts. From Oracle, to the small-volume-printing of the Diamond Sutra, and to the Rescue of Herbal Medicine, although these are purely hand-made, and the Chinese people have been using this whole board printing method, it is these efforts. Laid the foundation and development path of modern graphic design. However, in ancient China, graphic design has always been based on a vague morphological feature. There has been little innovation in terms of form and thinking methods, let alone modern graphic design concepts. This is closely related to the characteristics of Chinese social development.

The arrival of the industrial era has not only brought about earth-shaking changes in many old production methods, but has also brought about tremendous changes in the human spiritual world and social ideology. After the "May 4th Movement", western cultural thoughts "invaded" China on a large scale, and Western graphic design ideas and concepts were also introduced into China. In the early 1930s of the 20th century, the Chinese art community had a viewpoint: "The arts and crafts industry is a new term in China, but it is not a new business and it has a history of thousands of years." Actually, for Chinese people from the prehistoric era The starting "visual communication activities in two-dimensional space" also have the same properties. Modern graphic design is an art form that came from ancient times and was developed on the basis of ancient graphic arts.

The start of China’s national industry started the modern Chinese graphic design prelude, among which there was no lack of eloquent shouts from the First Scholar, and the unremitting efforts of followers of new ideas and new academics. However, because of the abnormal development of Chinese society and national industry, it has not become a discipline systematically. It has always existed in the category of "decoration" in the category of "arts and crafts". Although the name is not the key, the unclear concept makes the subject's development direction affected. Until nearly a decade, the name and concept of "visual communication design" began and was quickly established. The name of "decorating professional" in Chinese academy of fine arts was gradually being eliminated.

The real rise of modern Chinese graphic design began in the 1980s, accompanied by the establishment and improvement of art design disciplines. The use of modern graphic design concepts and methods to mine the design upsurge of Chinese cultural genes carried by Chinese characters began in the last decade or so. With the maturity and development of Chinese graphic design, Chinese graphic designers have paid more attention to the excavation of traditional Chinese culture. Chinese graphic design learners and researchers have already learned about the nutrition of Chinese characters and their various forms of art consciously or unconsciously (consciously or unconsciously) and have achieved some results.

In Japanese contemporary graphic design, the in-depth study and use of Chinese characters and Chinese calligraphy can be said to be earlier than us, but Japanese designers are mainly looking for usable graphic design elements from the perspective of the formal beauty of Chinese characters and calligraphy. We can see a large number of works in the form of Chinese characters or Japanese pseudonyms, and use the expression of Chinese calligraphy to join the concept of modern flat composition. From this we have seen the charm of Han culture and the unique influence of Chinese characters on the world of graphic design. On the basis of Chinese traditional culture, contemporary Chinese designers try to express Chinese graphic art represented by Chinese characters and Chinese calligraphy from different perspectives, and use Chinese characters and Chinese calligraphy as graphic design elements to express concepts. Compared to foreign designers, Chinese designers seem to be more willing to explore some design elements and inspiration from the deep meaning of Chinese culture embodied in Chinese characters, and to represent pure local cultural features.

The Chinese graphic designers who have grown up in the Chinese character culture have grasped the Chinese people's "dominant genes in design wisdom and ability." Their degree of understanding of Chinese culture is something foreign designers do not possess. Without escaping from the “images” and “shapes” of the world, the simplified and generalized Chinese characters of objects provide a space for creativity and creativity. The Chinese designers grasped the Chinese characters. This feature has brought Chinese characters as a theme or language medium to an unprecedented level in graphic design work. We can feel the influence of Chinese characters in world culture from the logo of the 2008 Olympic Games.

From modern China's plane visual communication education, we can also see that more and more attention has been paid to the training courses centered around Chinese characters, such as the design of Chinese character fonts, the change in the graphic creativity of Chinese characters, and so on. However, at the same time as the research on modeling, we should also give sufficient understanding and emphasis on the culture of Chinese characters.

Chinese characters are just a form of designing images, and it is difficult to achieve "perfect" representations of attitudes, emotions, and other intrinsic experiences. In the graphic design, it is only a language and means. What is truly valuable is the gene it carries that “the Chinese people’s ability to creatively summarize and express the image of a thing in a two-dimensional space”. Studying the relationship between Chinese characters and graphic design is to interpret the cultural genes we carry. This kind of gene is the wisdom and strength of a design that is always in the deepest part of our emotions and thoughts. This kind of wisdom and power has never ceased to affect our subtle influence and help from the Chinese characters to the present through other artistic forms of Chinese characters and their Chinese characters. Concerned about the creative and creative capabilities of prehistoric Chinese human beings in the two-dimensional space, and the ancient Chinese people's "visual communication activities in two-dimensional space" are necessary means for the development of Chinese graphic design.

As Chinese people, we still have a lot to do with Chinese characters and Chinese graphic design. We integrate the “creative” and “creative” thinking of Chinese people carried and embodied by Chinese characters and Chinese graphic arts into the contemporary graphic visual communication design language. A new type of creativity, in the field of graphic design to demonstrate the everlasting artistic charm of Chinese civilization, is the ideal and responsibility of Chinese designers.

(Author/Zhang Junjun Design Department of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts 2002 Master's Degree)

Design three lines