China Graphic Design - Reality and Outlook

Xiao Yong/ Lecturer in the Design Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Doctor of Arts

1st Century - Back

China invented papermaking and printing, and created information-borne media that recorded human civilization and culture. Paper and printing provide a medium for recording visual information. Not only does the graphic design have a space for artistic expression, it further promotes the spread of culture and the progress of human civilization. Faced with the 21st century, the global cultural differences are gradually narrowing and the geographical boundaries are being diluted. As new technologies advance with each passing day, the world economy is becoming more integrated. Design changes in modern culture and business. Where does Chinese design go?

Trace the history, from the west to China, the evolution of “design” is not difficult to see its own development and social awareness and attributes. Art - Arts & Crafts - Commercial Arts - Art Design - Industrial Design - Art Design - Design. The transformation from arts and crafts to design concepts has experienced a complex and chaotic process in the 20th century. Design has developed in the West for a century. In China, modern design takes less than two decades. Today's design industry can be divided into functions and forms: product design, visual communication, and environmental design. In the design of visual communication: the design of photography, illustrations, graphic design of printed publications, multimedia of movies, web design, image design, etc. continues to enrich the design content.

2 Reform - Open - Design

The development of China’s economy has promoted the progress of design. The rise of design as an emerging industry benefited from the reform and opening up in the 1980s. China's reform and opening up has intensified market competition, and society has moved from design to recognition. It is a process of budding, development, maturity and development. It goes without saying that design interacts with economy and commerce, and the prosperity of commerce highlights the competition of design. Design is also the need of a civilized society for high quality of life. As a combination of technology and art, design can better reflect the diversity of modern culture and diversity of human nature.

With the advent of the knowledge economy, economic diversification, and market development, China's society, economy, and emerging industries are new opportunities and challenges. As a knowledge-based service industry and an emerging cross-disciplinary, the design industry plays a pivotal role in the competition of enterprises. The mature consumer market puts forward higher requirements on brand service, product packaging, advertising and image design, which has led to the emergence of design. With the concept of consumption is changing from material consumption to spiritual consumption. The design emphasizes more people-oriented personalization and humanization.

The design community is gradually growing. In 1999, an average of 132 companies were established every day in Shanghai, and as many as 3,000 large and small design companies in Beijing. As a pilot in Shenzhen, many design studios and companies have formed a certain scale, and set a model for the design of industrialization. In response to economic development, we have gathered a large number of designers from the south to the north and from the coast to the mainland, especially in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. Since the 1990s, plane associations such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Shanxi, Guilin, Wuhan, Heilongjiang, Northeast, and East China have sprung up. More and more designers continue to participate in design exchanges at home and abroad, participate in international exhibitions and publications, and receive awards. Chinese designers are no longer behind closed doors, but are more open and international. In 1998, at the Brno International Graphic Design Biennale in Czech Republic, the number of Chinese designers was ranked fourth. In recent years, studying nearly 100 Chinese design students in Europe, the United States, and Japan will also inject new vitality into the development of design in China. International design community colleagues have foreseen that the era of Chinese design has arrived.

China's imminent accession to the WTO (World Trade Organization) means that China has become an important part of the world's economic market. This also brings a historic opportunity for the sustained and stable development of China's economy. At the same time, it also brings new challenges to the development of various industries in China. In the fierce market competition of brand competition, Chinese products and services will face consumers' choices. No matter from the formation of the primary product to the strong brand, the formation of the corporate image to the development of the new market, the design plays a key role in the product design and brand image, the environmental design, and the new media. In particular, with the reduction of tariffs, the price advantage of domestic goods will gradually disappear. Therefore, strengthening brand awareness and focusing on design quality are being realized by more wise entrepreneurs. The value of design and the role of the designer are evident. The value of design in business, culture, and society is gradually reflected.

3 Late Design Education

The market has not had time to wait for the late design education. It has created a lot of fake and shoddy products that are filled with dust and foam. When we discovered that there are huge differences in the image, product, service, and management between domestic and foreign companies, we suddenly find that the lack of designers has increased the demand for design in society, and qualified designers cannot meet the market in quantity and quality. demand.

In 1999, there were more than 400 colleges and universities in China with design departments (Taiwan does not count). Comprehensive universities are also adding design departments, and art colleges increase the proportion of design. Wuxi University of Light Industry, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and Nanjing University of Arts have successively established design schools (branches), which has led to the scale of design education. The national professional registration ranking design ranks 13th. Only Jiangsu recruited 4,500 students in 1999. The design education education has just entered the stage of marketization, and the teaching method is changing from the skill type to the quality type.

What is worth noting is that quite a shortage of qualified teachers and inadequate conditions for running schools, which cater to the market and blindly expand enrollment will have potential adverse effects on the future development of the industry. Traditional arts and crafts education has seriously lagged behind the needs of the market, so that students cannot graduate while they are learning, and lack the market's ability to develop and design. The use of fine arts and decorative techniques as teaching content is the main reason for the design of a thousand holes and monotonous methods. Reforms in design education should evolve from popularization to specialization and hierarchy. Both the educational content and the structure should change the pattern of self-sufficiency and make greater reforms according to the needs of the society and the market. With the changes in new technologies, new ideas, and new design awareness and forms, new-type design quality education has become an urgent task.

4 Fourth Media and New Graphic Design

Following the paper brush media (newspapers, books, magazines), radio and television, the emergence of the fourth media, the Internet, will soon have a huge impact on the process of human civilization in the 21st century. Internet Internet will be a new stage for graphic design. Its unlimited information resources, interactive graphics, and high-speed and high-efficiency features have a huge impact on print media. Network economy also has a profound impact on the graphic industry.

Network information dissemination has the interactive information of sound, image, graph, and text, visual, auditory, and interactive visual communication globalization. Graphic designers - network artists represent the emergence of a new culture in future eyeball battles. 10 websites are registered every second in the world, and 80,000 new websites are created every week. In January 2000, Chinese netizens were nearly 10 million. Web designers have been listed by China as the top seven best-selling talents in the world. They integrated the text and information on the web and designed an attractive interface to give viewers a strong visual impact and attractiveness. Future graphic designers are required to master the ever-changing computer hardware and software, and have the flexibility to grasp the expression of visual new vocabularies.

The emergence of the Internet has eliminated the geopolitical boundaries and changed the way people work and study. Designers can work at home without having to care for people and rent office buildings. This is exactly what the online graphic designer SOHO (Small Office Home Office) “works at home”, they can be freelance designers, serving clients through the Internet, carrying out graphic design, advertising design, has become a fashion work model in the city. .

5 Graphic Design Trend Forecast

The background of design such as humanities, society and commerce is developing and changing, and the emergence of new technologies and media influence design. Looking at the development trend of graphic design, mainly reflected in the changes in design work patterns and structures, as well as changes in design performance and form. Specifically in:

5.1 Division of Design: Design industry from specialized to refined development;

5.2 Design and operation: marketization;

5.3 Design Form: Plane design extends from the traditional two-dimensional to multi-dimensional space;

5.4 Design Performance: Graphic design extends from static visual communication to dynamic multimedia information dissemination;

5.5 design style: design followed by walking;

5.6 Design Knowledge: Structural content is more cross-cutting;

5.7 Design disciplines: Emerging disciplines will rise;

5.8 Design work: mutual complementation and sincere cooperation;

6 tomorrow - design will be better

We are concerned about the future and the future. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, designs have different definitions and patterns. Designers play an active role in improving the quality of life and promoting the progress of civilization. Graphic designers act as visual cultural builders. Over the centuries, graphic design has moved from static expression to dynamic communication; from single media to multimedia; from two-dimensional planes to three-dimensional and space; and from traditional print design products to virtual information images.

Chinese design has a long way to go. Today, our designers are fortunate to enjoy the sunshine of reform and opening up. The new century has brought us new opportunities and challenges. We can draw on advanced Western design methods and successful experiences. The new design culture will integrate traditional culture with modern civilization. We are convinced that Chinese designers will rejuvenate and carry forward the national culture and achieve new heights.