Chinese character design inspires new vitality of traditional culture

Qin Bricks and Han Tiles·Hundred Family Surnames Wang Jiahao

Fuhai, Fenglu, Shoushan, and Joy Li Yansong

The emotion of words Jin Daiqiang

Enjoy it Liu Shiyan

A bumper harvest Li Guanlin

Opening the book is beneficial Xi Jiabin

【Students Talk】

Chinese characters are unique visual symbols of the Chinese nation, embodying the extraordinary and outstanding wisdom of our ancestors. As a carrier for recording language and inheriting civilization, it has gradually evolved from the most primitive graphic symbols and hieroglyphics into fonts such as Zhen, Cao, Li, and Zhuan. It has been tempered over the years, continuously integrated and changed, and reflects the changes in Chinese history and culture. . As my country's economy takes off and the "Chinese cultural craze" continues to heat up, Chinese character design has ushered in a new era, forming a diversified design system and showing a multi-dimensional development pattern.

Cultural dimension, the image of Chinese characters

Among the six character creation methods of Chinese characters, the rules of character creation such as "pictogram", "phonetic sound" and "knowing meaning" give Chinese characters the characteristics of expressing meaning through form, and also create their unique images. Chinese characters not only express sounds but also express emotions. They have formed a standardized system in the long process of accumulation, evolution and development. They have spread far and wide, blended with the characters of various ethnic groups, influenced the culture of neighboring countries, and formed a system that covers many countries. The "Chinese Character Cultural Circle".

The ideographic nature reflects the Chinese character creation rule of using meaning to shape and shape to express meaning, making it contain rich cultural information. The characteristics of both practicality and artistry make Chinese characters the "darling" in the field of contemporary design. Designers cleverly make use of the mutual interplay of form and meaning of Chinese characters to explore their profound cultural connotations. Through the overall structure of Chinese characters and the image expression of basic strokes, they convey the Chinese spirit and demonstrate Chinese wisdom.

The Chinese character series poster "The Feeling of Words" created by designer Jin Daiqiang combines the four characters "mountain, water, wind and cloud" written in traditional Chinese ink with the image of the four treasures of the study, and extracts the idea that "words and pens are as heavy as mountains". There are four kinds of image expressions: words and paper are like a fish in water", "words and inkstone are like a breeze", and "words and ink are as leisurely as clouds". The design combines traditional Chinese aesthetics with modern design based on the philosophical idea of ​​integrating things and myself, vividly interprets the rich emotions and vivid charm of Chinese characters, and shows the breadth and depth of Chinese culture.

In the new media era, the dissemination of information requires accuracy and efficiency. Logo designs with Chinese characters as the main body often have highly summarized visual images. Moreover, because of the function of Chinese characters to convey emotions, they are highly identifiable, rich in connotation, and precise in expression. The Palace Museum logo designed by designer Shao Bolin is also a typical representative of the beauty of Chinese character imagery. The logo is based on the word "palace". The designer cleverly transformed the dot of the character "palace" into a combined image of sea water, river cliff pattern and jade, which means "precious as a jade". The square structure with the word "palace" in it symbolizes the architectural pattern of the Forbidden City, and the unsealed design at the bottom implies today's openness and tolerance. The overall logo of "a round sky and a square square" not only vividly expresses the "shape" of the Forbidden City, but also fully conveys its cultural essence, and is full of design ingenuity and artistic interest.

Value dimension, the prosperity of fonts

Chinese characters have gone through the baptism of time and passed down from generation to generation, and now they have developed a mature and diverse font system. With the change of science and technology, laser phototypesetting technology has replaced movable type printing, which has brought about revolutionary changes in the way of communication of Chinese characters. The intervention of digital media has brought a qualitative leap in the design of Chinese character fonts. When we re-examine Chinese characters from a new perspective, we will find that its innovative design methods are as varied and colorful as a kaleidoscope.

As the most frequently used fonts in people's daily lives - computer fonts, which we usually call "printed fonts", its rapid development has led to changes in Chinese character font design. When the common Song fonts and bold fonts can no longer meet the needs of information dissemination, diversified font designs have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. At present, the types of fonts available for computer text input systems are constantly expanding. In addition to various conventional fonts and improved fonts such as Founder Boya Song and Microsoft Yahei that have appeared one after another to adapt to screen display, many calligraphy fonts rich in traditional Chinese aesthetic value They have also been gradually integrated and transformed into fonts by designers, such as Kangxi dictionary style, Yan style, Liu style, etc. which are popular among the public.

In addition, a group of font designers have focused on exploring the contemporary value of traditional culture, activating the cultural charm of ancient Chinese characters through innovative design methods, so that they can enter modern life with a new look and become well-known and loved by the public. The "Hanyi Chen Style Oracle Bone Script" font designed by Professor Chen Nan from the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University is the first design work to convert oracle bone script into computer fonts. By exploring the beauty of mathematical geometry contained in oracle bone inscriptions, the designer proposed the methodology of "metrical design" to put on "new clothes" for ancient Chinese characters. Looking back at the font design with the theme of "Qin Bricks and Han Tiles", designer Wang Jiahao refined and transformed traditional patterns and recreated them based on the structural characteristics of Chinese fonts. Taking the characters "Le", "Su" and "Feng" as an example, the designer integrated the pattern details of Qin bricks and Han tiles into the font skeleton based on the strokes of traditional Chinese characters. The rhombus and triangle decorative units can individually serve as point, vertical and horizontal characters. Strokes such as , , and fold can also be connected to form a three-dimensional structure to cleverly decorate the font.

It can be said that new fonts that continue to emerge with the growth of social needs have the characteristics of readability, fun, artistry and communication, which not only provide convenience to design workers, but also greatly enrich our daily life. Life.

Exploration of spatial dimensions and forms

The evolution of traditional Chinese characters mostly revolves around the writing method of strokes, or structural changes due to the slowness and urgency, lightness and weight, contraction and release of writing. In the era of big data where cultures blend and interpenetrate, the design of Chinese characters involves all aspects of glyphs, structures, strokes, and meanings.

Font designers either divide the text by shearing to form local or overall displacement and overlap, giving it a sense of dislocation; or they subjectively scale parts of the Chinese characters to create a new visual focus, thus changing the semantic direction of the text; Or choose the languages ​​and characters of different ethnic groups and integrate them into the structure of Chinese characters in clever ways to create artistic symbols superimposed with multiple cultural images... From this, Chinese character design attempts to break the limitations of form and derive diverse faces and rich meanings. new image.

The four words "Fu Lu, Shou Xi" are indispensable elements in the design of cultural and creative products during the Chinese New Year, symbolizing people's expectations and blessings for a better life. After examining many related designs of traditional styles, Mongolian designer Li Yansong decided to make a different attempt with a new angle and design method. In order to break the monotony, he first reorganized the four characters into four phrases: "Fuhai", "Fenglu", "Shoushan" and "Happiness", and also added Mongolian explanations. In the design of glyphs, designers design and process the text through abstraction, refining, decomposition and reorganization, graphic decoration, etc., and finally create a modern "new font New Year picture". It is also a Chinese character design related to the theme of the New Year. Designer Li Guanlin's "Five Grains" series of creative works incorporate traditional combined character forms, combining the external form and inner meaning of traditional Chinese character phrases with auspicious meanings. , allowing traditional Chinese character design styles to be extended in modern cultural and creative design.

If the design of Chinese characters on a two-dimensional background relies on the designer's traditional cultural accomplishment and innovative design thinking, then the design of three-dimensional dynamic Chinese characters supported by digital technology requires the creator to master the essentials of graphic design and have the ability to understand new media. In-depth understanding and flexible application of technology. The theme of the 2022 Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts Undergraduate Graduation Works Exhibition is "Unbounded Western Beauty". In the main visual design of the exhibition created by Yang Tiantian, the theme words produce rich morphological changes under the beating rhythm. Behind the seemingly disordered structural reorganization , is a large and orderly computer algorithm. This work uses a deep integration of computer language and art to explore the multi-dimensional expression of Chinese character design, and actively explores the innovation of Chinese character design methods and interaction models.

With the development of the times, Chinese character design breaks through the constraints of space in the collision with emerging technologies. It extends from paper media to screens, changes from static to dynamic, expands from two dimensions to three dimensions, and constantly changes its appearance. It can be said that it has light, sound, and Colored and tangible. In the future, the emergence of new technologies and new concepts will surely bring more abundant and vivid vitality to Chinese character design, adding a new dimension to the beauty of Chinese characters. Let us wait and see.

(Author: Liu Shiyan, professor at the School of Design and Art, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts)

Source: Guangming Daily