DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
XZ&YW : The design concept and inspiration came from the ZEN and Chinese ink painting's spirit and philosophy "Ink and water can paint the whole world in a poetic way".
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
XZ&YW : the balance between negative and positive we focus on black and white as the visual language to transfer the spirit of the Chinese ink painting.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
XZ&YW : promote us to become much better and more responsible designer for the world!
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
XZ&YW : two weeks
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
XZ&YW : This Catalog was published on the occasion of the exhibition "INK", an event about contemporary Chinese ink painting. Its design is an attempt to translate the aesthetic of the exhibits into book form. The publication is trying to reflect the spirit of the exhibition and shift the sensibility for combining the void with solid colors and forms to a higher level. The multifaceted design is continued in the text flow, image layout and structure of the book.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
XZ&YW : only published 800 by kunsthalle göppingen. yes, would be nice to lease the production rights
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
XZ&YW : the top level works, best context and content
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
XZ&YW : only the 9 artists works from our exhibition are the main influence for our book design
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
XZ&YW : museums, art schools and academies, collectors, governors, gallery owners, artists and so on
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
XZ&YW : the unique context, top level exhibition artists, location, curator
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
XZ&YW : the name is on the occasion of the exhibition "INK", an event about contemporary Chinese ink painting.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
XZ&YW : adobe and hand writing calligraphy
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
XZ&YW : the complete black book to present Chinese painting. it's not normal style
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
XZ&YW : we did by ourselves
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
XZ&YW : not that much.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
XZ&YW : not really influenced by data or analytical research
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
XZ&YW : The biggest challenge is to transferred the very national and traditional culture of China into context of Europe and let the exhibition visitors and all the relevant audience from the contemporary context of our design and edit of the book have interest about the works and also via a good catalog design to guide them the story behind the exhibition. It's so important as a good catalog, to lead a very clear and contemporary context to tell a good story and give the right knowledge and example to different culture background audiences.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
XZ&YW : i have the duty to let the worldwide get to know better Chinese ink painting in a high level context, spirit and design
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
XZ&YW : we learnt that the really good design doesn't matter where came from or which culture background it is, but sincerely respect the content and spirit of the design itself, and use the right visual language to translate it into the best quality
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
XZ&YW : our design is poetic, aesthetic, pure, focus, ZEN, spiritual, contemporary culture input
