Zhanlong Deng
Waves, The evolution of Chinese characters
https://dengdoesdesign.cn/category/aut/grad702
‘Waves’ is a project that dives into the fascination with Chinese characters. Every character in Chinese has a story or legend; the elements that form the words were once independent, and they merged and evolved into something we see today. Their evolution through time shows aesthetic changes between dynasties, sometimes adding new elements and sometimes removing them, and these changes alter how the character is interpreted. This project focuses on telling and explaining the story, legend and significant changes of various characters from different categories. This project is conducted in two languages, Chinese and English. With this project, I hope more people will be inspired to look not only into Chinese culture but also into other cultures as well, as they all have a great history behind them, just waiting to shine.
This is a research-based design project that utilised historiography and ethnography to examine the development of a series of Chinese characters and the cultural significance behind each character via publications and posters. Furthermore, the project also takes each character and its development stage in a selected timeline to demonstrate the change in form and how the changes alter the meaning.
Although many have studied Chinese culture and published numerous papers and books, most of the resources are based solely on academic research, and there is a gap for an artistic approach to unravel the complex topic of language in a graphic form.
This study aims to bring the study of language, history and cultural fascinations in a comprehensive reading not only for Chinese audiences to learn about their culture but also for westerners to understand some of the ideological and philosophical thinking behind Chinese culture. To isolate the personal inference to the writing, a historiographical approach was applied in this study; through scientific analysis, the material in the base text is objective and accurate. Then, media that worked cohesively to signify the meaning of character created interest and association. The idea of texture is also important for engaging the senses, the physical feedback from picking up a book and presentation of the graphic — all these sensations of haptic and visual feedback can be guided with different paper stock and print methods.
This project demonstrates the use of different print methods, image processing and physical textures to create an engaging publication to read and learn about the language and culture.
