Yunzi Liu

Being an artist is a childhood dream for me. I studied painting for nearly ten years before high school. However, at that time, the artistic atmosphere in my country was not so active so I chose a more practical way: studying English literature in college. During the last year in college, I realized that the desire for creation and innovation was still sparkling with excitement at the bottom of my heart. So I picked up my pen and started drawing again, and then opened an online store to sell hand-drawn postcards. In this process, my lack of design skills gradually became an obstacle. Therefore, I decided to learn graphic design professionally and worked for a design agency in Beijing for a year. Later on, I went to Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) for a graphic design MFA. I never distinguish art and design as completely separated fields, and my design or you could say art practice is always trying to bring them into each other and yield some inspiring results.

I am a freelance designer and also make art at the same time, or you can call me a part-time designer and a part-time artist. For the graphic design part, I usually do some branding, advertising materials, and packaging. When it comes down to earth, graphic design is saying other people’s voices in your way so it is not your ideas that are propagated. This is also the reason why I also create artwork while doing design. I work with paper, cement, foam board, and fabric, almost everything at hand.

For me, “design” is everything that is evolving. At the very beginning, I was a half-outsider of graphic design and I thought “design” was a logical problem-solving process. So I highlighted this on the first page of my portfolio when I applied for the MFA program at MICA. While our program director, Ellen Lupton, had been focusing on “design is not only problem-solving but story-telling” for years. Very embarrassed. I cannot describe how huge her influence is on me. All in all, my understanding of design is always evolving. For now, “design” has become a much broader notion than simply a problem-solving process or even storytelling. It comes to an interdisciplinary level. Designers are no longer a messenger, but more like a pathfinder.

I would like to design an experience. Instead of feeding people with information, I would rather create a pleasure or unique memory for my audience.

There are a number of great designs and we can talk day and night. If I have to name one, I would like to say MUJI’s whole brand concept. It sounds like a cliche because so many people have talked about this design. However, it has been a guiding star for me since I started my career as a graphic designer. MUJI proves that a themed shopping experience can make a huge difference. The whole team’s design process and teamwork are also like textbook examples. Besides, I am a big fan of Ikko Tanaka, the original graphic designer for MUJI. I heard Tanaka was really skillful at cooking fish. Attract person, right?

My first project as a graphic designer was doing illustrations for a Chinese App Store called Peapod. When I first worked for an advertising agency, I was not allowed to do graphic design. My role was as an Account Executive who communicated with clients and shared their feedback with designers. To fit into our client’s’ schedule, we usually submitted designs in the morning, let them decide where they liked or disliked, and got feedback in late afternoon, so graphic designers always worked overtime. To learn more design skills, I stayed with them every time and once even worked 36 hours non-stop. I guess my endeavor touched one team leader and he allowed me to do an illustration for a PeaPod project. This is very small, but significant for me.

Definitely paper. I am not very fond of screens. Generally speaking, papers have a huge impact on the final results of printed matters. This feature opens up many possibilities for designers. Personally, instead of making videos or something that moves by itself, I prefer to design products and let people interact with them in their own ways.

I feel most creative after talking with other people, especially people who think opposite with me or work in other industries. They will ask me questions that I have never thought about. Those will probably become my inspirations for future projects.

I value the audience’s physical interactions most. When I start a project, I constantly question myself if I were one of the targeted audiences, what I would act towards the design product, and how to elevate the experience. I seldom follow the design trend. For me, a good designer should lead the trend instead of following it.

Of course most of the time I feel driven. But when I run into the bottleneck, I will divert my attention from my uninspired brain by learning some new irrelevant things, such as some words or sentences in a foreign language.

To the surprise of many, usually, I feel upset when I finish a design. Very rarely do I feel satisfied with my final results. I always expect them to be better. But meanwhile, I am glad for the feeling of loss because it is proof of my growth. This is why I always do self-critique on my previous work and sometimes even redo the whole project if I have time.

This is a big question. For me, if I see a design and think “It could be like this? It could be like this!”, then it is successful.

I will consider if the design delivers the correct message, and then the right emotions to serve the design purpose. For example, If you are designing a popular science book for children, the text should be as simple as possible and the images should be easy to understand. Children should find it fun and eager to read it. For better designs, sorely serving the users purpose is not enough. It will be difficult to push forward the design industry. Actually, designers are endowed with the power to shape users behavior patterns and thinking mode. New designs and technologies will inevitably “force” people to do something they have never done or thought they would do. Designers should take advantage of this and contribute to our better future.

Designers should look beyond customers and inspect the social, political, and environmental climate to indicate and address future issues and opportunities. This is what speculative design focuses on. We should look into the future, solve problems in advance, and use sustainable materials. And culturally, graphic design styles sometimes can distinguish themselves geographically, such as we informally naming “Japanese style”, “Scandinavian style”, and “European style”. Here we need to treat this dialectically. Cultural background is a treasure, but sometimes it will become a stereotype. To evolve the cultural legacy and to push it forward is an important responsibility.

I think the design field will more tightly combine with technology and science. Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality have become a trend for a while. Also, speculative design and sustainable design will play a more important role in the future.

My last exhibition was in ResoBox, a cozy site in Manhattan. The next exhibition has not been decided yet due to the Covid-19. I hope everything will get better soon.

Almost everywhere. I get inspired by exhibitions, books, and conversations with friends. Exhibitions might be a big source of my creativity because every work is talking about a different topic. Those artworks put up with many aspects of life that I usually ignore, which stimulates me to pay attention to different social groups and issues.

My style is pretty modern and clean. I am OCD in life, which determines my style I guess. Even my sculptures and installations are quite neat. For my approaches, I think both outside-in and inside-out. I will consider the customers’ needs and create a more innovative solution.

Let me tell you about an embarrassing experience. Since I am a typical sensitive Asian girl, I encountered a severe culture shock when I first came to America. During my first year at school, there was an assignment to design a blindfold. I came up with a scenario where a girl was saying goodbye to her boyfriend who had to go far away for a long time. My idea for the blindfold was to hang thin willow (which means “stay”) branches down from the blindfold. Emotionally, the girl wanted to persuade her boyfriend to stay. But he had to go, so she covered her watery eyes to avoid him feeling too heartbroken. These tangled feelings excited me and I could not wait to realize this design. At this moment, my professor only said one sentence to kill my buzz: why not cry? The biggest obstacle that my cultural background gives me is how to make things simple and living in the US helps a lot with simplifying my visuals and specifying my ideas.

I am a project-based freelance, and most of the time, I am not able to pay office visits. So usually I communicate with a specific person by email and telephone meetings.

I do suggest companies to hire account executives to communicate with visual designers. It will greatly shorten the duration of a project. For choosing designers, my advice is to see if the designer has his or her own style. A mature designer should have been formed a relatively fixed personal style. The final visual results will be within a realm that the company is looking for.

Most of the time, I get briefs online and do telephone meetings or office visits to discuss more details. Then I will give my schedule and quoted price and set off the project after receiving dawn payments. If my clients have really specific ideas about what they want, I will design some proposals right away. But most of the time, they do not realize that they have any ideas towards our final results. I will show them some existing examples and get to know their taste. After this, I will work on several design proposals. When my clients decide their favorite proposals, I will complete the designs and modify them several times before submitting the final design.

Number one should be the adjustable footrest. My legs are not long enough to sit comfortably when I am working and my footrest can perfectly solve this problem. Because it is adjustable, it can suit every table in my place. Another item is a coach coaster which can hold mugs on my coach. Also, I have an adjustable garment rack that props up from the floor to the ceiling. I have to say this one is not pretty but very practical especially for people like me who are renting small places in cities like New York. Number four, I will say my capsule soybean milk machine. As a Chinese, I prefer soybean milk to coffee. Compared to the soybean milk machine I used before, this machine is much smaller, and I only need to buy soybean milk capsules, put it in the machine and wait for a few seconds. Much quicker and convenient. The last one is not so practical: the chatty feet artist socks. They are so amusing.

When I am working on a project, mostly it depends on the project schedule. I still try to cook myself. Cooking is a good way to release pressure. When I have some luxury time of my own, I will have a big breakfast, exercise, and read some books.

The greatest thing about being a designer is that you can get involved in different projects, meet people from other industries, and influence the general public by your designs. The negative point, for me, is that the power of your own voice is limited compared with doing art. Probably I have too much to say.

Do not follow the trend. It is so easy to be ignored when we do design. Trending design styles are changing very quickly and some designers tend to follow the trend. I used to be one of them for a short period of time and I realized that this is the last thing that I would do as an innovative designer.

Comprehension ability and communication skills are very important. First, you need to understand what your clients want. It is not just literally understanding. You need to stand in their shoes and read their minds. You will also need great communication skills when you present your proposals and better solutions for problems encountered to your client.

I use the Adobe Suite. Adobe Illustrator is the most frequently used software in my design process. Some times I use Rhino and Cinema 4D, but I am still a beginner in 3D software. For books, I would like to mention BJ Novak’s The Book Without Pictures. He has a very witty and funny conversation with the reader by wording and phrasing, as well as typography. This is my personal “textbook” for story-telling.

I have to admit that I am really bad at time management. It does not mean procrastination. On the contrary, I am too eager to fix a problem so that I usually stay up late which is really unhealthy and unnecessary. Follow a healthy working schedule is a big task for me.

It depends on the clients. Some projects can be finished in several hours, and some may take over a year.

I have always been asked if I consider myself as a graphic designer or artist. Because of my personality and background, I love to talk about philosophical thoughts and tell rather complicated stories which are a kind of contradiction with the matters that graphic design deals with. So I cannot say that I am a pure graphic designer, but I always strive to bring graphic design into a more physical and more experiential level and let graphic design products itself become a part of the art.

My most valuable jab experience is when I got my first job in an advertising agency as an account executive. At that time, I had been learning basic graphic skills for half a year and had no ideas about design methodologies. The art director did not allow me to do graphic design. I could only perform as a bridge between clients and designers. However, my goal was to become a graphic designer, so when I worked in teams, I sat next to designers and watch them doing their projects. I learned more than I could have learned at school during that time. This is how I started and I will never forget.

Some cosmetic companies, fashion industries, and beverage brands.

I like hands-on practice, so I enjoy printed matters, print-making, and some projects that I can collaborate with artists or designers from other design fields.

I would like to develop some artworks and hopefully hold some exhibitions.

For now, most of the time I do designs by myself. For large-scoped design projects I work with friends.

I am working on packaging for a set of essential oil perfumes right now. I will do some paper-cut pieces to exhibit the atmosphere that each smell creates.

Since I used to work in China and I am working with Chinese companies recently, at least I have a basic understanding of the development and drawbacks of the Chinese design market. As one of the Chinese designers, how to form a style of modern China is still a challenge. We need to be more creative towards our cultural legacy. This is my vision and my task.

Being an artist is a childhood dream for me. I studied painting for nearly ten years before high school. However, due to the artistic atmosphere in my country at that time, I had not studied art until the last year of college when I realized that the desire for creation and innovation was sparkling with excitement at the bottom of my heart. So I picked up my pen and started to draw. Influenced by my designer friends, I took graphic classes and worked for a design agency in Beijing for a year. Our clients included Tencent, SnapPea, and so on. Later on, I went to Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) for a graphic design MFA. After graduation, I worked both on commercial cases and my own art experiments. I never distinguish art and design as completely separated fields, and my design or you could say art practice is always trying to bring them into each other and yield some inspiring results.

When I was in college, I suffered from insomnia for quite a while, and I decided to draw positive images to cheer myself up. People around me loved my drawings so I opened an online store to sell my prints. Then how to package them and decorate my online store became a problem, so I took design classes and fell in love with graphic design. To study design more professionally, I went to the US and studied in an MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). I guess the impulse to express and share is the internal drive for me to do good design.

The basic function of graphic design work is to deliver a message correctly and instantly no matter through pictures or types, so the first thing that I consider when I start a new project is what I want to say or need to say. The next question is how I say it. The answer depends on many aspects, such as your target group, the form of output, and even your client's budget. Then comes the essential part which I call the "spirit of a design" is the emotion it may trigger. A good design should arouse certain emotions of the audience, and sometimes motivate them to take certain actions. I would stand in their shoes to examine my design projects and make adjustments. Sometimes I will ask my family or friends for feedback. Technically, I rely on digital tools such as Adobe Suite and other 3D software. At the same time, I fancy hand-made physical models. I will say if conditions permit, the physical model my first choice.

My emotions go up and down during a design project. Overall, nothing feels better than solving a problem in a creative way. When I come across a problem, I will list several plans to solve it and give every plan a try. Sometimes the results turn out to be completely different from what you imagine. You have to try it. When I look at the right design, I know at the first sight that this is the one. Surprisingly, I am not so eager to look at the final results. Probably because I do not like the end of a creative process. I wish there were no deadlines for any projects and I would revise and revise.

Story-telling skills give me a huge help when I design. For me, a good design product tells people a story of a brand, background of an event, or history of a person. Telling an attractive story and controlling the tempo and rhythm is essential.

I grew in a small coastal city, and my personality is quite introverted. As a result, my design style is natural, simple and I pay much attention to environmental topics. I hope there will be more opportunities to work with non-profit organizations and work on some projects that can arouse people's attention to environmental problems and take actions.

I would like to say, do not follow the trend or pursuit "beauty" blindly. I bet many young designers may have a common experience where your client does not prefer the one you think is the best but decide on a relatively "ugly" version. However, when you become more and more experienced, your design antenna becomes more and more sensitive. You will not pitch the "best-looking" design but the "correct" one. Kenya Hara said good design looks natural. A trendy design does not suit every brand. Imagine you were your client, what you would like to promote, and imagine you were a customer, what you would like to buy or experience. Practice for some time and you will see differences.

I believe that a good designer is always thinking in their audience's view and provide what the customers need, and a great designer keeps offering people some products or services that they will need in the future. My advice is always creating the trend instead of following.

Typically, I wake up, do some stretch, have breakfast, and open my mailbox to read articles from my subscription. Sometimes I go through Instagram feeds and watch some related videos. I deal with projects in the afternoon and get feedback from my clients before dinner.

I think the design field will more tightly combine with technology and science. Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality have become a trend for a while. Also, speculative design and sustainable design will play a more important role in the future.

I will consider if the design delivers the correct message, and then the right emotions to serve the design purpose. For example, If you are designing a popular science book for children, the text should be as simple as possible and the images should be easy to understand. Children should find it fun and eager to read it. For better designs, sorely serving the user's purpose is not enough. It will be difficult to push forward the design industry. Actually, designers are endowed with the power to shape users' behavior patterns and thinking mode. New designs and technologies will inevitably “force” people to do something they have never done or thought they would do. Designers should take advantage of this and contribute to our better future.

I have to say, practically, it depends on my clients and how big the projects are. For myself, I never want to stop working on any projects, I wish I could revise each project again and again.

My biggest and favorite design work is a life-size surreal "murder" crime scene where the audience can search for evidence and deduce who the murderer is. I am a big fan of detective stories, and always attempt to initiate a project to relate my hobby to my design skills. Two years ago, an opportunity came to me so I designed that space and held an event there. People who signed up their names formed groups of detectives to solved the case together. I interviewed some of the participants and got many helpful suggestions. This is a valuable experience for me.

I adore Jessica Walsh because she is the opposite of me. After graduation, Jessica came to the well-known Sagmeister with her portfolio and finally collaborate with him to establish Sagmeister & Walsh (now & Walsh). Her ideas are bold and her visuals are exaggerated. She also founded an initiative Lady, Wine & Design worldwide to share design-related information among female designers. She dares to think and dares to do. This is why I admire her. If I were able to talk with a dead designer, I would choose Ikko Tanaka. He is my first idol in the design field. Opposite to Jessica, he is an extremely introverted person. He said he even felt ashamed in his own exhibition and hoped no one knew he made those designs. In fact, he knew a lot about Japanese cultural deposit and integrated into his design successfully. Personalitywise, they are two extremes. I think they are both successful because they create design products that can fit into their societies, which is also my standard for good design.

I seldom listen to music. When I work, I put my body and sould into the project so that any sound coming from the speaker cannot get into my head. In my spare time, I listen to stories. There is an App called Ximalaya. People read stories for fun and I have been listening for around seven years. My cultural background influences me a lot. It shaped my thinking pattern which may go against the purpose of raphic design. Let me tell you about an embarrassing experience I had at school. Since I am a typical sensitive Asian girl, I encountered a severe culture shock when I first came to America. During my first year at school, there was an assignment to design a blindfold. I came up with a scenario where a girl was saying goodbye to her boyfriend who had to go far away for a long time. My idea for the blindfold was to hang thin willow (which means “stay”) branches down from the blindfold. Emotionally, the girl wanted to persuade her boyfriend to stay. But he had to go, so she covered her watery eyes to avoid him feeling too heartbroken. These tangled feelings excited me and I could not wait to realize this design. At this moment, my professor only said one sentence to kill my buzz: why not cry? The biggest obstacle that my cultural background gives me is how to make things simple and living in the US, getting to know a completely different thinking pattern helps me a lot with simplifying my visuals and specifying my ideas.

I worked in teams years ago, and now, I typically work alone. Because of my personality, my first choice is working by myself, but I constantly encourage myself to collaborate with other designers and artists and work in teams because communication skills are very cutial. The opportunities are very limited to imporve the ability to pitch your ideas and digest feedback.

I always want to work with material scientists to design textbooks for poor kids in rural areas of China. Usually, they use donated textbooks that have been marked and not consistent. I do hope one day they can get their textbooks at a low price. I believe as technology develops, we can find recycled materials to realize this dream.

The best thing to win an award in such a world-famous competition for me is gaining confidence. It is a strong approval of my design skills and concepts, and also it encourages me to do more and better designs. Meanwhile, by seeing other designers' design projects, I was inspired and encouraged. Another good thing was that I was interviewed by a local newspaper of my hometown and my mother bought eight copies.

I learned painting for around ten years before high school. For college, I studied English at Beijing Language and Culture University. Then, I worked in an advertising agency for a year. This experience made me realize that I had to study graphic design more professionally so I went to the United States for an MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art and worked as a freelance designer thereafter.

The impulse of creating something new urges me to innovate. Repetitive work is the last thing I want to do.

I was not forced, but I was encouraged. My mom is the person who knows me better than myself. She saw the designer in me when I was very little so she sent me to an art tutoring center and she always encouraged me to enter the art world.

I like to design books. Typically, the stories in my mind are pretty complicated, so books can provide me enough room to narrate.

Do not follow the trend. I do encourage young designers to create something out of their passion and make them attractive. If you think outside of the box and make your idea convincing, you will be the one who leads the trend.

A good designer is always thinking in their audience's view and provide what the customers need, and a great designer keeps offering people some products or services that they will need in the future.

To make a good design even better, you should pay attention to the details. I evaluate design by examining if the details are designed carefully and cleverly.

Good design can promote social development. In recent years, speculative design has become a hot topic. Designers no longer simply follow the users' needs, they start to predict the future and cope with probable issues. Most of the software updates and new mobile phone functions offer us more convenient or more interesting methods to achieve expected results.

I would like to design for the poor kids in rural areas of China. Usually, they use donated textbooks that have been marked and not consistent. I do hope one day they can get their textbooks at a low price. I believe as technology develops, we can find recycled materials to realize this dream.

I always need time to redo or modify some of my previous projects. Whenever I look at the project I did before, I will come up with better ideas. I tried to redo several old projects and I learned even more than doing new projects.

My secret is summarizing my concept in one simple sentence. This may not be helpful for everyone, but it works well on me. After brainstorming and researching, I will get too many ideas to express in one design. At this time, I will force myself to make a choice and use one simple sentence to conclude my concept. This becomes a standard for me to examine if my idea is clear enough.

I got inspired and encouraged by Sagmeister and Walsh. Not just Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh, everyone working in this studio is not just a designer, but also an artist. Their particular way of developing a project shows more possibilities for graphic designers like me.

There are many great designs and we can talk day and night. If I have to name one, I would like to say MUJI’s whole brand concept. It sounds like a cliche because so many people have talked about this design. However, it has been a guiding star for me since I started my career as a graphic designer. MUJI proves that a themed shopping experience can make a huge difference. The whole team’s design process and teamwork are also like textbook examples.

Choosing the greatest design is as difficult as choosing your favorite child. I worked hard on every project and each of them has room to be improved. Maybe I can tell a bit about the most interesting project I finished. I am a big fan of detective stories, so I initiated a project which is a life-size surreal crime scene where the audience can search for evidence and clues to find the murderer. I held an event in that space. People who signed up their names formed groups of detectives to solved the case together. I interviewed some of the participants and got many helpful suggestions. This is a valuable experience for me.

When I see a great design, I cannot help thinking about how did the designer come up with that idea. Typically, a big idea is a snap of inspiration. Even the designer might not know where it came from. To constantly create exciting work, we need not only a one-time inspiration but also a creative thinking method that can guide us to infusive results.

I might have become a professional bartender. I know little about beverage and alcohol. I would like to learn if there is an opportunity.

This is a frequently asked question and my answer changes every time. For me, “design” is everything that is evolving. At the very beginning, I was a half-outsider of graphic design and I thought “design” was a logical problem-solving process. So I highlighted this on the first page of my portfolio when I applied for the MFA program at MICA. Ellen, on the contrary, told us that design was not simply problem-solving, but a story-telling process. I cannot describe how huge her influence is on me. All in all, my understanding of design is always evolving. For now, “design” has become a much broader notion than simply a problem-solving process or even storytelling. It comes to an interdisciplinary level. Designers are no longer a messenger, but more like a pathfinder.

My family. My mother encouraged me to do art and design since I was very young and she also gave me spiritual support when I doubted myself and stressed out.