【Design】狐狸太太日記

Many Chinese designs originate from the I-Ching. From a design perspective, it can be widely used in architectural design, garden design, clothes-design and graphic designs. In terms of graphic design, the creation of Chinese characters originates from the I-Ching, which is in the form of a highly abstract picture. These are not merely words but indeed pictures to present a given event, which is regarded as more direct than words. The size and appearance of each individual word has a considerable impact on the appearance of the page, making it more or less easy on the eye and easy or difficult to read.

Despite the difference between Chinese characters and English words, Chinese characters present a square structure and indeed present an easier balanced edit. However, each individual word symbolises a given picture with a distinctive meaning, and when editing its order, one would need to take its visual order and logic into consideration; otherwise it may easily lead to an unnecessary misunderstanding.  Normally, it is written vertically from the right whereas in the past, words were recorded the bamboo sheets and bundled together one by one. For writing convenience, one would place the bamboo sheets in the left hand and hold a pen-brush on the right hand, one bamboo sheet would be placed on the left-hand side corner once it is finished and so it carries on, hence that is why we see today: reading from right to left, and books are stapled on the right-hand side.  But with the internet spreading worldwide, our reading direction, has changed and with the influence of Western culture, we have begun to accept reading from left to right . With this, it increases the difficulty when editing vertical and horizontal words mingled together, hence the confusion created when reading which may easily result in important issues being misinterpreted.

Bauhaus inspired the modern design concept and endeavoured to promote the combination of art and technology, by emphasising the Person within, and indeed believes that the objective of a design aims towards a person and not in product itself.  A belief that wishes to achieve a design concept from an objective point is very much like a balancing concept within I-Ching, where the aim of an editing process helps people to collect and analyse information obtained in achieving the communication purpose. Further, referring to graphic designs, western Grid Systems have a significant impact on the editing of words and typography design, it indeed affects the editing space, word?size, words?weight, proportion, picture and interrelationship within the words, hence, enabling us to gain further understanding regarding Chinese culture characteristics through Grid Systems.