Press Release
Serious Little Squid Visual Identity by Youjia Gu Wins the Bronze A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
Youjia Gu honored for graphics, illustration and visual communication design by the international grand jury of the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2020 /DesignNewswire/ Serious Little Squid Visual Identity by Youjia Gu, designed for MET Creative Brand, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The award was conferred within the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
About Serious Little Squid Visual Identity
Serious Little Squid is a visual identity created for a restaurant brand. The identity is built around A Zheng, a squid character that stands for urban office workers. Details such as a necktie and a headscarf make the character easy to recognize. The graphic style follows black and white silent films, using cold humor and simple comic scenes. A series of illustrations named the inner theater presents daily life in a large city. The intent is to build a positive brand tone and a close link with young consumers.
About Youjia Gu
Youjia Gu, born in 1993, is the master designer of MET Creative Brand. She is committed to creating a beautiful restaurant design. As a new generation of young designers, she pursues fashion design. She has her own unique design style, providing VI design for more than 100 domestic catering brands. She hopes that through her own design, every restaurant brand can have its own recognition. Although she has been engaged in the design industry for about 5 years, she has led her team to complete the VI design of many famous restaurants in China, winning the trust of customers. At the same time, she has made great achievements in many domestic and foreign design competitions.
Award Record
Youjia Gu is a winner of 2 A' Design Awards, including this recognition. All of the awards belong to the 2019 - 2020 edition of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Award
The A' Graphic Design Award is an international graphic design competition recognizing good graphic designs by best creative agencies and designers worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to graphic designers, communication designers, graphic artists and illustrators from all countries. Entries typically include logos, posters, infographics, brochures, packaging designs and business cards. Awarded graphic designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/graphics
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/100470
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/100470
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!100470
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/272661
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://c7.gg/fUU2u
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Serious Little Squid Visual Identity
- Function
- Visual Identity
- Category
- Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Branding & Advertising and Arts
- Colors
- Black, Gainsboro, White Smoke, Silver and Dark Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- MET Creative Brand
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Youjia Gu
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2019 - 2020
- Design ID
- #100470
Credits
- Team
- Yun Liu, Yuchen Wang, Siyu Xu, Yuting Wang and Xin Wei
- Image Credits
- Photographer MET Creative Brand, Serious Little Squid, 2019.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- In this case, the designers create a strong sense of image, pretending to be serious but lively IP image to make consumers have intuitive association, and build a brand tone of "sunshine, positive energy, cheer themselves up". They grasp the popular "mourning" but full of positive energy of the target group in the current society, and try to enlarge the positive and optimistic feeling.
- Inspiration
- With the rapid development of society, there are countless young people who choose to work in the first tier cities. They desire to have their own time and pursue freedom. Therefore, designers focus on urban office workers who pursue their dreams in big cities, hoping to cheer them up and create a harbor for their hearts through the healing and strong resonance characteristics conveyed by restaurants. So the serious little squid came into being.
- Research
- Party A hopes to become the most popular leading brand of small squid category that really understands what young people know and think. The IP background is set as the spokesman of urban workers, so as to become the communication carrier of the brand's original intention and shorten the distance with consumers.
- Challenge
- Through simple and interesting comics and copywriting, and in the name of "inner theater", the life scenes and lifestyle of this generation of struggling young people in big cities are presented in the form of theater, one scene at a time, so as to arouse their resonance and awaken the love to life and ideal pursuit of life hidden in their heart.
- Realization and Technology
- Designers take spokesman of urban workers as the prototype, and personify the brand to create "A Zheng", a vivid and lovely squid image. In order to highlight the image of "urban life workers", they added details such as neckties and headscarves to make them look in line with the positioning, and at the same time, they are very personalized, vivid and popular.
- Operation and Interaction
- In terms of design techniques, the designers chose the form of black and white silent film as the carrier.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in February 2019 in Xiamen and finished in September 2019 in Xiamen.
- Specifications
- The most representative of black-and-white silent film is Chaplin's series of works, which is funny and ironic. In the design of this case, an inverted expression is extracted, that is, cold humor and hypocrisy. This seemingly silent and less positive state actually expresses some very sunny attitudes.
- Keywords
- Visual Identity, Commercial, Restaurant, Modern, Fashion, IP, Small Squid, Sunshine, Positive Energy
