Press Release
Piggy Express Brand Character Identity by Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu Wins the Bronze A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu acknowledged for graphics, illustration and visual communication design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 17, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Piggy Express Brand Character Identity by Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu, designed for Piggy Express Creative Design Team, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design category. The award was conferred within the 2025 - 2026 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 evaluated 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.
More About Piggy Express Brand Character Identity
Piggy Express is a brand character design created for a ride hailing service. The character develops the pig icon of the brand logo into a friendly travel companion. A high saturation color scheme increases visual visibility by 42 percent, and an independent silhouette keeps the character recognizable across all media. Animations guide users through tasks such as coupon redemption and route tracking. The character was refined through thirty rounds of shape iteration and tested with more than one hundred users in Chinese cities.
About Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu
Joy Studio was founded in 2020, comprising two members, Du Qingyu and Zhang Jun, who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University and Pratt Institute. Over the years we have served in multiple fields including fast-moving consumer goods, automobiles, and IT, involving brands such as Nestle Coffee, Hilton, Mobike, Didi, Pico, JD, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lenovo, etc., from which we have gained rich project experience in brand design, packaging design, IP, and UI design.
Award Record
With this recognition, Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu is a winner of 3 A' Design Awards. The awards span the editions from 2024 - 2025 to 2025 - 2026 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/173387
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/173387
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!173387
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/356749
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
- Piggy Express Brand Character Identity
- Function
- Brand Character Identity
- Category
- Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Branding & Advertising and Arts
- Colors
- Medium Slate Blue, Gold, Blue Violet, Goldenrod and Rebecca Purple
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Piggy Express Creative Design Team
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Du Qingyu and Dong Xiuxiu
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #173387
Credits
- Team
- Du Qingyu, Dong Xiuxiu, Liu Jiaqi and Shen Fangyuan
- Image Credits
- Piggy Express
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- The design went through 30 rounds of shape iteration, and was tested among more than 100 users from first, second and third tier cities in China, to verify its cross regional cultural acceptance and visual recognition. The multi level sampling focused on two core indicators, visual recognition speed and user affinity. Empirical data from different urban demographic groups guided the optimization of the structure and core visual features of the character. The high saturation color scheme increases the visual visibility of the character by 42 percent, and the independent silhouette design ensures recognizability in all media scenes.
- Inspiration
- The ride hailing industry is highly homogenized, with most brands prioritizing functional efficiency over emotional connection with users, leading to generally low user brand affinity. This project was created to fill this gap. The character inherits and evolves the core visual elements of the official logo of the brand, redefining the pig icon, a widely recognized symbol of savings, into a friendly travel companion, reshaping the emotional tone of the brand, and humanizing the digital mobility experience for users.
- Research
- This study addresses the emotional coldness and functional homogenization in the ride hailing sector. By establishing a multi dimensional evaluation model, we bridged the gap between visual recognition and emotional resonance. The process involved targeted user surveys and iterative testing across multi tier Chinese cities. The final design aligns brand visual identity with emotional value against traditional industry schemes. This project offers a quantifiable, reusable framework for transforming transactional services into humanized brand experiences.
- Challenge
- The core challenge of this project is to transform static brand visual symbols into a complete brand character IP with emotional value. We must ensure the character carries the brand's emotional tone while retaining high recognizability across complex multi scene applications. By balancing a friendly visual style with a unified brand specification system, we integrate the character into the brand's full channel visual system, helping it build differentiated competitiveness in a homogenized market.
- Realization and Technology
- The visual system is made with Adobe Creative Suite, Cinema 4D, and Octane Render, with standardized specifications to ensure IP consistency and extensibility across digital, physical, and vehicle media, solving industry adaptation problems.
- Operation and Interaction
- The Brand Character functions as a living interface element. Through anthropomorphic animations, Piggy Express Character guides users through complex workflows, such as coupon redemption and route tracking. These purposeful micro-interactions have catalyzed a 35% increase in daily active engagement, turning routine tasks into moments of delight. The derivative ecosystem, covering both physical and digital touchpoints, maintains a positive sentiment rate of over 90%, proving that emotional design is a powerful driver for brand affinity and commercial conversion.
- Project Duration and Location
- Launched in Beijing in 2024, the project continues to iterate across multiple scenarios including digital interfaces, vehicle livery, and collaborative activities. It now covers full-channel communication and serves more than 1,000,000 users.
- Specifications
- The sizes depend of the media where it is applied
- Keywords
- Brand Character Design, Visual Identity Design, Visual Communication, IP, Emotional Brand, Gamified Experience, User Research, Commercial Conversion
