1. Suzhou’s Kun opera
Costumes made in a traditional Suzhou style using embroided silk feature bright colours and are hand-made with exquisite detailing. Dramatic facial expressions convey mood. Du Li Niang and Liu Meng Mei are some of the most well known actors

2. Food and Markets
We saw a traditional Suzhou food market the style of building and the lanterns is very particular to Suzhou.
A Rice wine shop (see above). A mobile, one person shop / This lady travels on the 3 wheel moped behind her and uses a set of portable scales to weigh her produce. We also learnt how to make Chinese dumplings and were sensibly advised to use water not glue to fix the dumplings

3. Window / Design / Sign design
We saw various examples of signage including this pearls shop sign and this flag which reproduces a well known traditional calligraphic poster.

4. Barrier free design
This presentation focused on design for disability in China — The student explained that is a relatively new design discipline. The examples included a garden specifically designed for visually impaired people with braille annotations and plants carefully selected for their scent.

5. Ambient advertising
This presentation featured various examples of ambient advertising from the city including this branded van

6. Alan Chan and Chen Man
This presentation focused on the work of Alan Chan a successful Chinese graphic designer. The image above is his poster for Beijing Olympics which was informed by traditional Beijing architecture. We also looked at some of his corporate identities and global brands such as Coca Lola. Ending with the work of successful female Chinese photographer Chen Man.

7. Retail display / Window display
A wide range of examples of retail design — and window dressing

8. Chinese Calligraphy
This talk focused on the tools and process involved and showed us the work of calligraphers from a number of different generations including Wang Xizhi, Qi Gong, Guo Moruo

Thanks to all the Suzhou students who presented — it was great to see such a wide variety of examples and it was obvious that a great deal of care and attention had gone into your presentations — well done!!!

Nice post by @__cui about our Design Dialogue event… Re-blogged from http://wsaadm.tumblr.com

Talking across interfaces.

Suzhou looking at WSA looking at Suzhou looking at WSA

Hello!

Chatting to each other! Big thanks to participating GA students, and to MACD student Katrina who did such a wonderful job translating for everybody.

Today’s project was so awesome!—–2 countries, 14 presentations, 120 minutes, 5743 miles.

The WSA students were Grant, Itai, Naomi, Karo, Corey, Victoria, Charlotte and James presented 7 wonderful presentations  in relation to food, fashion, campus, adverting, graffiti and teaching. The Suzhou students also gave 7 talks on Chinese food, local markets, decorative design, kun opera, printing and designers.

Katrina, you did a good job on the translation.

Thanks so much for everyone taking part today!

Harry

As it is nearly Christmas time here in the UK we are considering santa hats for the UK staff and students — what do you think??

Hi!! to all the Chinese students from Suzhou Art Design and Technology Institute. Great that you are participating in this event — we are all really looking forward to seeing your presentations 🙂

Thanks to our  UK based Graphic Arts students who have signed up to our project so far – once we get permission 🙂 we’ll put their pictures up … Meantime: Corey Dixon, Karolina Cichon, Naomi Mann, Grant Norris, Maria Cedeno, Charlotte Scarrow, Itai Ankrah.

Watch out Harry’s in the print room 🙂

OK today we tested our idea with a Skype call to Suzhou — it was around midday UK time and getting late in China. We wanted to introduce our UK students to the Chinese students and discuss the topics which will be the focus of our 10 slides in 2mins Pecha Kucha style presentations next week. Got to say well done to everyone involved — despite weird internet problems and some fairly serious translation issues we managed to discuss the ideas and now everyone knows what they are doing next week…I think…

Special thanks to Katrina one of our MA Communication Design students who stepped in to help with the translation and who agreed to help next week aswell… Also, thanks to our 1 year BA Graphic Arts Students who have put themselves forward to present. We have agreed that Harrry and I will be buying the coffees and pastries next week as we have an early start.

See you next Wednesday 12.12.12 everyone!!!!

Before we ran the Design Dialogue event we wanted the students to locate themes of interest that would form the content of the dialogue. So we asked both UK and Chinese students what they wanted to know about each other design cultures and got them to email us some questions to put to one another. The Chinese students emailed straight away with a long list of queries…the UK students were a bit slower off the mark but we managed to agree some themes with them on the day.

Questions from China
Show us a student’s perspective of the Winchester campus?
Show us what projects have you completed in the first months of your UK graphic arts course?
What are the best / innovative examples of advertising in UK ?
What is typical British food – is it the worst in the world?
What is hot in British fashion design right now?
What does UK graffiti look like? Who are the leading artists?

Questions from UK
Show us some of your student’s graphic arts work?
How does censorship affect your practice?
Who are the most famous Chinese graphic designers and why are they considered the best?
How has traditional art influenced graphic design?
China invented paper is it still important in the digital age?

We plan to discuss these topics in our first web chat next week and decide which we will discuss in our presentations.

OK we have had our first meeting with the Suzhou students who are really excited about the project we now just need some UK students to sign up so…

IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART PLEASE EMAIL US TODAY!!!

If you wish to take part please email Harry and James at: DesignDialogue2012