We have been busy working on new website design with Bruce at Bruce Chin Architects Limited. The project started with a face to face meeting with Bruce at his design studio. Bruce has a general idea of what he wanted, and have attempted to DIY his own website through online website builders with no avail; he just couldn’t be completely satisfied with what he wanted to achieve… this is when he found Ku Design to come to the rescue!

The website needs to look professional and easy to navigate, large photos are essential too! Online viewers will need to be able to contact Bruce easily with the setup of an online contact form.

Bruce Chin is well organised and knew exactly what he wanted, site contents and photographs were supplied in an organised manner. It has been a pleasure working with Bruce.

Issues:

• Lack of current online presence
• Needs to be ranked by Google
• Requires a project showcase
• To include genuine Testimonials
• Static pages for general company info such as ‘About’ and ‘Credentials’
• Keen to have a dynamic ‘News’ publishing system
• To improve the company logo to be implemented on new website

Solutions

• Elegant theme / website template setup
• On-site SEO factor implementation training
• Content management system integration
• CMS training
• Improve aesthetics of current logo
• Online contact form implementation
• Online project showcase

We have allowed 4 weeks from start to completion of this project, it was however completed in 3 weeks.

Visit Bruce Chin Architects Ltd. Website

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. 10 reasons why you should have a website
2. Who needs a website?
3. Is it time to upgrade my website?
4. New Website for the Beavers

We are proud to launching the tokuphoto.com artistic stock photo website.

Who is tokuphoto?

Tokuphoto is a one stop shop for all your stock photography and event photography needs. Here, you can find a wide variety of original, colourful, and creative images that are sure to suit your graphic requirements.

All of our high-quality images are taken using Canon, Leica or Zeiss equipment. Our pictures capture special moments in time with amazing depth, colour, vibrancy and glow.

What is the brand identity consist of?

Originated from the Chinese character ‘圖’, and in English ‘picture’. The outside ‘box’ of this character was stylised to look like a ‘bracket’, or hands gestures ’7 &’7′ ‘when visualising a picture. The logotype resembles the New Zealand Koru.

How many photos are there in the tokuphoto database?

In just under 1 month, we have reached 2500 beautiful artistic stock photos! This body of work was collected since 2000, a 10 year archive of photos from well known and award winning photographers James To and Joseph Ku. We have a good collection of photos of Christchurch, before the devastating earthquake that destroyed most of the CBD. These photos captured a moment in time marked by history, of the former glory that once was a vibrant and beautiful city! The Christchurch CBD is in the process of rebuilding, and I look forward to a better and more vibrant city, and keep a look out for more beautiful photos during the rebuilding period.

Who is our target audience?

Photographs that you see in our database are of the highest quality, once purchased they can be professionally printed and framed as artworks. We are in the process of finding a local framer, and to offer framed and signed pieces for gallery displays. These framed pieces will be suitable for public spaces such as hotel/motels, lobbies, City Council offices, hospitals or at a private residence.

Photos are also available for web use, that can be purchased and downloaded at lower resolution, suitable for website theme building or relevant story/blog writing.

We are improving as we go, and thank you very much for your support!

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Congratulations to the Beavers for this outstanding world class award!! We are proud to be part of your website marketing team!

Source 3 News: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 6:24p.m.

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Our World 05′

I have never paid any attention to anything Steve had to say… I only knew he was a great guy who transformed Apple to become the most valuable company in the US, but never knew that he was involved with calligraphy and typography 10 years before he stepped into the technology world. “It was the first computer with beautiful typography” The appreciation for beauty and the love of type lead him to his beautiful creation of Apple! I just want to say thank you Steve for the wonderful tools you’ve invented that helped make life easier for us designers!

I stumbled upon this video clip that touched me a great deal, and I’d just like to share this on my blog!

“I learned about serif and san serif typeface, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating” – Steve Jobs

“I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll kknow when you find it.” - Steve Jobs

Inspiring 3 stories Steve Jobs told at the 2005 Stanford University graduation.

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Graphic Design as Art – Part 1/6

Proud Supporter of Canterbury Rugby Football Experience

With the Rugby World Cup 2011 around the corner, I thought it’s a good time to post something about the Christchurch Rugby on my blog.

Proud to support Canterbury through the Canterbury Rugby Football Experience. Joseph was delighted to be asked to take professional photography of the Rugby Book. Keen contributor of junior rugby by taking photos of important events around Canterbury.

“Ku Design provides high quality works and fast turnaround for your project requests, and are experts in creating design works for the New Zealand & the Chinese markets.”

The Rugby Book Website

Young rugby talents on film

Article Source: Community News Paper July 2011

The players in two Christchurch junior rugby teams became media stars last week.

A match between Merivale Papanui and HSOB under-13s was filmed by a French film unit, and also photographed by Joseph Ku for a rugby book Capturing the Canterbury Rugby Football Experience which is being produced to celebrate Red and Black rugby after it lost the World Cup matches because of the earthquake. Local All Blacks Fergie McCormick and Nathan Mauger signed a jersey which will be auctioned to help earthquake-affected rugby clubs.

French TV Documentary

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We’ve had great pleasure in the design and development of the new Corporate Identity System, and the new Website Design for Ijada Consulting Limited.

Ijada is an unique advisory services and networking opportunities tailored especially for current and prospective clients in New Zealand’s education and migration industry.

Ijada (pronounced eee-jar dah) is Spanish for jade/green-stone.  Jade has a very special place in many cultures, with particular significance in both New Zealand and China.  For the Maori and Chinese people, it represents beauty, strength, life energy, calm and permanence amongst many other positive attributes.  As such, jade represents the common link between our Asian and Pacific cultures.

Brief Design Concept

The logo represents a traditional Chinese yin-yang motif, stylized as a kiwi nurturing its egg.  The kiwi (a small flightless bird) has long been a symbol of Aotearoa New Zealand and its people.  The egg represents the potential that this beautiful and innovative country offers to the world.

A sample page of brain mapping for the development of the Ijada Corporate Identity System Design

Final selected logo design for Ijada

Business Card Design

Letterhead Design

‘The letterhead is merely just a piece of paper to write on, but really a functional piece of equipment for a business. There is much to the letterhead than meets the eye, what does a letterhead look like blank or when written? How is a letterhead folded? Where should information go on a letterhead? Where should a logo appear on a letterhead, and why does it appear on the top right hand corner? There are a lot of  functional and aesthetic questions to be asked, and are required to be thoughtfully constructed for it to function the way it should!’ - Joseph Ku.

A letterhead sample showing:

1. Letterhead with design elements and notes.
2. Letterhead showing texts on.
3. Blank Letterhead.
4. Letterhead folded up

The New Company Website Design

We have chosen a professional clean and elegant approach, with the corporate color green flowing through the theme of the site. The site is an informative one, with user log-in capability for client’s staff to log-in and add new contents to the site. It has a member’s subscription where customers can subscribe to the site via Google Feedburner or RSS. The site will have a paid member’s area when traffic and site contents become substantial, member will pay a small fee to read invaluable information on New Zealand education and migrating to New Zealand.

The website is still under development, one of the scheduled features is the Chinese translation to appeal to the Chinese market as well as the English speaking market. Below is screen grab of the web-site for a quick preview, or visit the Ijada website  for more details about the company.

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Logo Design Process for Wagmu
2. web design
3. What is a logo design worth?

Converting an old caravan to a mobile design office?

Caravans are generally pretty expensive, and I did not want to pull apart a good caravan for this project, this is when the older it is, the better!

Dreaming of  owning a caravan for quite some time now, after a bit of looking around this is what I’ve found! A 40 year old empty caravan used as a sleepout by the previous owner in Rangiora. It has no rego or WOF, and I managed to tow it back safely!

This is the interior of the caravan, it appears clean and dry, but I suspect it has rotten timber underneath as I could smell damp and rot… looks like  it’s gonna get ugly before it gets beautiful!

Getting Ugly

The fun part is to rip apart the old lining. This is the front end, good to see it was lined with batts, but sad to see years of condensation has caused the timber to rot, especially at around the corners. It will require major repair work! I used a product called ‘timber preservative’ I bought from Mitre 10, to help preserve existing timber from further rotting. As you can see below, it really looks ugly now, and yes I have created a big mess!

Removed badly rotten timber from the caravan

Design Brief / Objectives

• To secure an old caravan, and converting it to a mobile office
• To measure and draft a plan for this conversion
• To purchase materials and tools required
• To design a solar power 12v system for lighting, and to charge a laptop
• To spend time in the weekends for this restoration project
• To do it all within $2000 NZD
• To be used as a potential business tool to offer mobile graphic design or tutoring services?

My 2yr old son puts his hand up as the volunteer to help me out with the restoration project!

Caravan Damp Proof

Condensation is one of the worst problems in a caravan, especially in cold countries like New Zealand. To help reduce condensation, I purchased a roll of left over building paper from a guy at trademe, when I checked up on his address to realize that the location (Brookland) is of of the worst hit Christchurch earthquake effected areas! Entry to this suburb was controlled by the New Zealand army to ensure safety for everyone, and the drive into this suburb was really bumpy with a few access blocked due to damage! I wanted to take some photos of the damaged roads, but did not want to do this to avoid public anger, or be called rubber neckers… Sewerage systems were popped off the ground to some 50cm high, and there was no water or septic system, there were portaloos in every corner. We have been very lucky, as we have not been effected much by the 7.1 magnitude earthquake happened at 3.45am 4th September 2011, and have only started to see the force and damage this quake has caused!

I painstakingly lined the timber framing with building paper, and replaced rotten timber with treated ones.

To ensure the caravan is completely damp proof, I double lined the framing with building paper, before re-lining it up with 3.6mm hardwood ply.

The front end of the caravan lined with 3.6mm hardwood plywood sheets. I love the smell and the natural grain of the timber! I think I will not paint over it, instead I will oil it to allow it to breathe. I think it is starting to look good!

Doing a bit of tidying up around the window with ply off-cuts.

The caravan came with a cracked window, I happen to have a perspex frame at the same thickness 3mm, and ideal to use as the replacement. I heard that perspex are better insulated than glass!

Body filling dins and dents, and lots of sanding! Aluminium dins easily, but the great thing about it is that there is no need to worry about rusting, and I am able to work outside before the first coat of primer is applied.

Ripped out the old caravan light wiring, and purchased a new 11 metre 7 core cable from trademe for $46. Much cheaper after comparing with the shop at $160 for 11m! I was trying to save the old wiring, but it was just a mess, with no color coding and it was everywhere. Glad to have pulled new wires for the rear lights.

Felt like a difficult task trying to re-wire the lights for the caravan, but it isn’t as hard as it looks after a wee bit of research. Just connect the right color code to the right light, and earth (white/grey cable) them up together. Below is the diagram I have drawn for your reference. The most time consuming part is to try to solder them together, and to heat shrink the connection so they will not oxidise too quickly.

Designing and making rain hoods for the rear lights, although the lights are splash proof, I want them to last longer. First step was to draw a plan, and then make a dummy out of paper to see how it fits.

A more careful plan drawn from Freehand, my favorite software for drawing using the Mac. Being a graphic designer has a lot of advantages, especially when you need to draw and plan out your designs on a computer! Below I have taped the 2 dummies to see how they will look.

Transfering design onto a piece of aluminium. The easiest way was to place the paper plan on top of the aluminim, then draw connecting dots using a fine marker pen. The dots are connected together to form the final shape to be cut out.

Completed rain hood for the rear lights! Looking nice. They should look good once painted.

Hey, if you want a flat plan of the rain hood, give me a yell, I will email you a PDF sample to try out!

Putting on the primer coat. I used a product called etch primer, this product is designed for bare metal, and works by etching into the metal for superior adhesion. It is starting to look good! Preparing the surface for paint took a lot of man hour, and patience…

Rear light brackets installed, before spraying on the first coat of the top coat. The color chosen is ‘Aluminium’, just to differentiate from the norm.

First coat of the top coat is sprayed. Jaedon inspecting for flaws. I have been wanting to use car Lacquer paint for the top coat, but end up using epoxy enamel, as this is easier to work with and thin/clean for spraying, it is also cheaper and should work just as well.

That’s all for now, I will keep working on it, and report in whenever I can. I have been busy building websites and graphic designing, but I have not forgotten about my readers and my blog… I look forward to getting my caravan restored! Watch this space for more later…

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Timber flooring DIY

Clouds that reflect to the mood of the people, after the the 7.1 magnitude earthquake happened in Christchurch on 4 September 2010 @ 3.45am. The biggest earthquake Christchurch has ever felt, damaging houses, schools, historical buildings, and shut down the Christchurch central city for 2 weeks!

It hailed the night before the big quake, it could have been a sign something big was about to happen?

When it happened at 3.45am, most people were at sleep, the ground rumbled for about 45 seconds, we thought it was the end of the world, and it felt even more like it when the power went off~  it was completely pitch black! When power was back up at dawn, I turned on the TV to find the extent of the damage around the city caused by it! We were without water for half a day due to a pump failure, at first I thought we have lost our underground water!  Luckily I managed to get the pump working again, but it pumped out silty red water for 1 day before running clear. Some 120 domestic wells have been damaged west of Christchurch, so we have been very lucky!

One Lima monkey died in the zoo through the earthquake, when the animal was frightened and tried to escape that it fell into the pond and drowned~ sad… No human lost their lives, it had to be a miracle and we are truly blessed!

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50cm x 100cm, digital print on canvas

Visual Works on Close Up

Yiyi finally decided to choose Music over Medicine as her studies at the University of Canterbury. Music is what she is passionate about, but Medicine is something she is really good at; it was a difficult decision as my dad really wanted her to follow his footsteps…

Chinese character for ‘Music’ or ‘Sound’ -  ‘音’.

I observed that this Chinese character contains 5 horizontal lines, same as in the western ‘music stave’. Traditional Buddhist musical instruments and the philosophy of Buddhism have deeply influenced her music composition work. Yiyi started playing the piano at the age of 6, and the piano has always been an important part of her life; Buddhism only came in to her life when she was 14, the age when we first arrived in New Zealand.

The Lotus Flower – Buddhist Symbol

The lotus plant symbolizes strength and compassion, as every aspect of the lotus plant is useful, and some parts can even be made into Chinese medicine.

In traditional paintings of Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is often depicted standing or sitting on the top of a lotus flower.

The Buddhist Heart Sutra (Prajnyaapaaramitaa Hridaya)

The ‘Heart Sutra‘ became the main subject of Yiyi’s music composition work, in her postgraduate years at uni.

The Heart Sutra in Chinese Calligraphic Style

Prajnyaapaaramitaa Hridaya (The Heart Sutra) by Ouyang Xun, a legendary Chinese Calligrapher

The Performance

Yiyi’s music composition work performed by a Christchurch Christian Choir and members of the Buddhist Association, accompanied by Rona the soloist, Yiyi’s mom. The music scores were truly unique,  as to be circular; this is in reference to the Heart Sutra: ‘There is no beginning and there is no end’. No two performances would record the same, as the choir would start at a random spot on the score, and the voices would alternate like sea waves. I was the photographer that day, Yiyi conducted the entire performance, and I wish I could have the words to describe this incredible musical experience!

Written Documentation – Chapter 4 ‘Tertiary Education’

We became Buddhists one year after we came to New Zealand. Mom and Yiyi have always been very devoted and Yiyi especially finds the Buddhist chants fascinating. She has been exploring the possibilities of using Buddhist instruments and chants in her musical compositions and has successfully given concerts of her works. Mom and I were involved with performances of one of her compositions entitled “Heart Sutra”, which employed one Chinese choir, one English Christian choir, and several Buddhist instruments. The interaction between the two choirs and the Buddhist instruments was marvelous; it was a night of harmonious mix between the East and the West. Yiyi told us that many of her compositions were inspired by Buddhist philosophies and require special attention and concentration from the performers in order to portray the right mood and sound. It was a great experience for me. I learned not only about the music and working with other people in the choirs, but also I discovered new things about my sister and my religion… Continue reading >>

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Graphic Design as Art – Part 2/6
2. Graphic Design as Art – Part 1/6
3. Graphic Design as Art – Part 3/6
4. Chapter 4 – Tertiary Education
5. From written word to art
6. Chinese Typo-graphy

Permanent UV ink on canvas, 50cm x 100cm, scroll bound contemporary Chinese style

Visual Work – Sections on Close Up

Chinese character for ‘Learn’ ‘學’. The bottom part of this character is ‘Child’,  ‘子’, a child with knowledge on top of his/her head. Please observe the 2 crosses within the top brackets, I picked up this as the symbol for ‘mistake’ / ‘incorrect’ / ‘Wrong’  in the western culture. When you start to learn something new, you often would get it wrong at the start, but then you learn from your mistakes, and to become better and better as you go up the steps. I replaced the 2 crosses in the original Chinese character to ‘circles’, and then to ‘ticks’ at the top!

Chinese character for ‘Write’ ‘寫’

The four dots at the bottom is replaced with ‘A, B, C, D’ in the English Language, to suggest ‘learning to write English’.

Chinese Phonetic System used only in Taiwan

Taiwanese system for spelling Chinese characters phonetically. This is considered the most important thing to remember for a primary school student in Taiwan. This system is only used in Taiwan where traditional Chinese is used; a unique system to spell out a Chinese word accurately. Western Roman system is used in China for their simplified Chinese.

Extract from Yiyi’s notes studying English
25/9/1989

“I’ve started reading Julius Caesar today. Other girls in my class have already started it last week. I am so far away behind don’t think it is a good idea for me to read this book because I don’t even understand ‘proper’ English at the moment… As I opened the book, I just got tired because there are so many vocabularies. I didn’t understand them at all. I had to use the dictionary for every two or three words…”

26/9/1989

“I continued to read Julius Caesar today. One girl in my class told me that Caesar disappears in the play pretty soon. I was glad to hear that because I wished he would die soon so that the play is going to be finished too, then I wouldn’t have to read it anymore. Everytime when I open the book, I am scared and frightened. I get sick of using the dictionary. I don’t know how many times more I would have to use the dictionary for every new scene, and the play seems to get harder and harder for me to understand.”

Written Documentation: Chapter 3 – Learning English

After what seemed like the happiest time of my life, it was time to go back to school, only this time it was worse because I had little English. At first it was like a Panda trying to talk to a Kiwi bird, with question marks popping up comically. It was frustrating but nevertheless, an interesting period of our lives…

Just before we were allowed to attend regular schools, someone from the Education department actually came to our accommodation to visit us and gave Yiyi and me a little English test. We were asked to write a short story about ourselves in English. All I wrote on my piece of paper was “Joseph”. Yiyi was admitted to the advanced ESL class at Hagley High School, as it was called then, while I studied in the preliminary class. It was already almost the end of the academic year and before I learned any English it was Crafts Week. I chose drawing and Yiyi made a dozen Christmas tree decorations. I spent more time drawing then using my English-Chinese dictionary. Continue reading >>

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1. Graphic Design as Art – Part 1/6
2. Graphic Design as Art – Part 2/6
3. Graphic Design as Art – Part 4/6
4. What are Chinese name chops?
5. graphic design
6. Good Graphic Design Quotes

Permanent UV ink on canvas, 50cm x 100cm, scroll bound contemporary Chinese style

Visual Work – Sections on Close Up

Chinese Pictograph for ‘Fly’ ‘飛’

As you can see the character is a drawing of a bird.

Introduction to Chinese Calligraphic Scripts (Chinese Fonts)

Chinese character for ‘Home’ ‘家’

1. 篆書 Chuan-Shu (Seal Script)

This script is also known as ‘bronze-inscription’ and ‘belland-tripod inscription’. Most Chinese people use a name seal instead of signature as their proof of identity. The following is an example of how the Chinese character for ‘home’ would be engraved on a seal. It looks like a maze.

2. 草書 Ts’ao-Shu (Draft Script)

This script is literally a form of shorthand in which the characters are rendered in dots and short strokes. It originated in the second century B.C. and matured by the third and forth centuries. Because of its abbreviation which makes it difficult to read, this script is mainly used by scholars.

Several words can be linked in a continuous line and extended for a whole column without the brush being lifted from the paper. This style is highly expressive and has an abstract quality.

3. 行書 Hsing-Shu (Action Script)

This can also be called walking or running script. In using this kind of script, the speed of execution, or brush movement is slower than that of the Draft Script, which makes this script easier for the layman to read. Most people use it for handwriting to express individual personality and style.

4. 隸書 Li-Shu (Clerical Script)

This script is also known as ‘Official’ or ‘Documentary’ script. It emerged in the Ch’in and Han period (221 B.C. to A.D. 221), and was simplified from Chuan-Shu for the purpose of clarity in reading and ease of writing. People in the past used this script to record history and important events.

5. 甲骨文 Chia-ku-wen (Oracle Bone Inscription)

This is the most ancient script. The earliest known examples of this engraved script date from the fourteenth century B.C. and lasted to the eleventh century B.C.. They were hand-carved on animal bones and tortoise shells and derived from simple drawings of objects; ‘home’ is an animal sleeping inside a cave.

A poem written by my mom when we first arrived in New Zealand.

Written Documentation: Chapter 2 – Setting New Roots

We had five heavy suitcases with us and each of us carried a small handbag. I even carried my own tennis racket on my back. By the looks of our heavy loads of luggage it was quite obvious that we were going to stay for a long time, wherever our destination was. I was thirteen years old, my sister was fourteen and my younger brother David was nine. We bravely headed towards the turning point of our lives, and were ready to fly away to a brand new future, New Zealand.

We arrived on this green island in October 1988. It was springtime here while in Taiwan it was about to turn winter. Although it was springtime, we still found it cold here especially during early mornings and nights. Everything was fresh but strange at the time of arrival; I heard people speak but couldn’t understand what they were saying. All sounds and voices were fresh to my ears. Soon I realized that this was English, a language we desperately needed to learn. At the beginning, drawing pictures, smiles and body gestures were our only means of communication… Continue reading >>

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Graphic Design as Art – Part 1/6
2. Graphic Design as Art – Part 4/6
3. Graphic Design as Art – Part 3/6
4. From written word to art
5. Chinese Typo-graphy
6. What are Chinese name chops?

When I say ‘Graphic Design as Art’, I mean there is no ‘Client’ involved in the process of making, and there is ‘No Commercial Value’ in the work produced, and most importantly, there is no one I need to please apart from myself!

This is the visual representation of  my written work completed in 2000. The story started in 1988 when my father made a life-changing decision to immigrate to New Zealand. It has been an important event of my family, and this became the subject of my post graduate studies on Typographic Design (Chinese Typography) at the School of Fine Arts University of Canterbury.

This body of work was exhibited in the Christchurch COCA Art Gallery in 2000, the ‘dreamseriessixhundred‘ Fine Arts Postgraduate Exhibition.

This is the first time my personal design works are shown on the internet!

Altogether 6 pieces of works were produced @ 50cm x 100cm:

1. The Unknown

2. Setting New Root

3. Language Barrier

4. Tertiary Education

5. Believes and Career

6. The Wedding

About my work

I have always been fascinated by my Chinese culture and I am especially interested in exploring traditional Chinese typographic attitudes.

Chinese characters were originally drawings of objects (pictographs), but over time they have been continuously refined to the point they are now largely unrecognisable as images acquiring, instead the symbolic nature of the western typographic system. By re-applying the imagery into a character, the character can then be read as an image and can therefore also be understood by people with different language backgrounds.

Having this concept in mind, the structure of this work is based on the story of my family immigrating to New Zealand. The story centres primarily on the life of my sister Yiyi.

The work remains as a valuable record for the future generations of my family and also a typical story of the many immigrant families that surround us after the New Zealand government changed the immigration policy in 1987. Apart from typographically exploring two different cultures, this work offers an opportunity to understand Chinese language, and people.

Written Work: Chapter 1 – The Unknown

Very soon our home was going to be somewhere down south, 9000 kilometres away from everything we knew. At 20 kilometres a day, it would take us nearly a year and half to walk that far. Even from the relative comfort of an aircraft, we faced a journey into the unknown, and were full of curiosity and excitement… [Read More]

Visual Work – Sections on Close up

Visual graphic interpretation of  Taiwan as a very dense and crowded place, the red marks ‘人‘are Chinese character for ‘Person’, representing the 5 members of my family.

This was just the image of Taiwan at that time (in 1988), it was not till after our recent visit back to Taiwan to realize what a beautiful place Taiwan really is! Below are some of my older posts about my trip to Taiwan:

1. The Li Shan Mountain of Taiwan

2. Lunar Chinese New Year in Fo Guang Shan

Western typography set in Chinese style font. When we first arrived in New Zealand, we could speak no English. This is a graphic representation of an experience of trying to find resemblance or similarities around a strange new place.

Here I have played with the visual graphic material found in our passports. This looks at authenticity, and the bureaucratic procedures of our journey to New Zealand.

‘來‘ = Chinese character for ‘To Arrive’ or ‘To Come’ . This is a visual exploration of Chinese Typography, pictorial aspects are added to an existing character to give it a new meaning. In this section I have added 2 more person ‘人’ to the Chinese character for ‘To Arrive’.

Chinese Characters are written in an orderly manner, stroke by stroke. ‘古‘ is our surname ‘Ku‘, here I played with the stroke writing sequence of our surname. Altogether of 5 strokes, and each stroke representing a member of our family.

‘

Now we have left our homeland, and arrived in New Zealand – a place with endless green field and sheep!

On the foreground are our signature in Chinese and English.

The next piece of work is about finding a new home in New Zealand. Our journey touring around this beautiful country in an attempt to find a suitable city to live in.

Continue reading >>

Other Interesting Posts on Ku Design Blog:

1. Graphic Design as Art – Part 2/6
2. Graphic Design as Art – Part 3/6
3. Graphic Design as Art – Part 4/6
4. Chinese Typo-graphy
5. From written word to art
6. graphic design