Bronze Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design · 2021
Qin Graphic Arts
by Kaidi Mao
- A' Design Award 2021 Bronze Winner in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Kaidi Mao
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 8,643
- Verification code 59964F3334 · Verify this award
About Qin Graphic Arts
Qin is a poster series that reinterprets the tradition of Chinese landscape painting through digital media. The name Qin comes from a Chinese word meaning to permeate or to seep into, and the written character joins the signs for water and heart. The images begin as photographs and are then developed with digital tools such as Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Procreate. The series is produced in two sizes and can be shown in print or on screen, in a gallery or a home. The intent is to express the Taoist view of nature for an international audience.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Kaidi Mao's examination of the aesthetic and intellectual tradition of Chinese landscape painting has enabled him to understand the connection between classical Chinese painters and their natural environments. To explore such painting's relationship to nature in a contemporary context, Mao has used today's technology to produce digital images inspired by the traditions of China.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- There are two sizes for this poster series: 24 inches x 36 inches, and 24 inches x 30 inches
- Tags
- Art, poster, Taoism, culture, landscape, painting
- Production Technology
- The initial images are from photography, then digitally created using tools like Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Procreate.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest challenge of this project is to visually communicate this East Asian worldview to international viewer, especially under the current political environment.
- Project Duration
- The project started in September 2019, finished in May 2020 in Los Angeles.
- Operation Flow
- These posters/graphic arts can be displayed physically and digitally, in a gallery setting or in a home setting.
- Research
- This project is a pictorial reinterpretation of Chinese painters' use of nature to communicate the Taoist notion that the whole planet is permeated by invisible Tao, "the Way of the cosmos, which is evident in nature." Mao has titled this project Qin. Qin, comes from the Chinese word, which means "to permeate", "to seep into". This project allows different cultures, concepts and methods to seep together. The character Qin consists of two parts: the left represents water, and the right represents the heart. Heart can be interpreted as the depth of one's feelings, and when combined with water, expresses something that comes from one's innermost being. Qin explores the aesthetic depth with which Chinese culture responds to, reveres, and honors the natural environment by reexamining pictorial traditions using contemporary digital image production. It also serves as an expression of the connection felt by a producer of such imagery with the underlying concept of Tao that inexpressibly permeates universal being in the Chinese tradition.
- Inspiration
- As a designer from China living in the United States, I have sought to integrate my training in contemporary design with my personal and cultural identity. This has come through an examination of different media and technological approaches. This process has led me to a series of digitally produced design pieces that examine my own Chinese pictorial tradition. These works have also allowed me an alternative approach to understanding The Natural within my practice.