Graphic design is increasingly occupying an important link in the discipline system of art design, becoming the most representative category of art design and even becoming an important part of "pure art". However, it is still an unavoidable fact that the design industry is "lively inside and cold outside".
Regionalization trend of North-South division of labor
"Painting can be divided into north and south" has become a well-known proposition in art history. Some people think that design is also divided into north and south, and its basis is not the cultural difference between north and south in China, but the city where the designer is located. "Northern Designers" were designated as several designers in Beijing; "South" includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Ningbo, where graphic design has risen in recent years. A fact that cannot be ignored is that the "northern designers" so classified are not necessarily northerners in the cultural sense, but a considerable number of "southern designers" are also practitioners seeking development from the north to the south. At the beginning, this classification probably only introduced the original intention of China designers, but did not make a summary from artistic style, design concept, cultural affiliation and other aspects, that is, regarded "formal experiment" as the style of northern design, which has nothing to do with Beijing's regional cultural characteristics. From the perspective of design development, the author disapproves of such a division at this stage.
In recent years, the prosperity of Beijing design has really had a strong impact on the Shenzhen center pattern of graphic design in China Mainland. For a long time, although there is such an important design education institution as Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing's graphic design development has been difficult to compete with Shenzhen because of the flow of well-trained design talents to the south, and several large design companies with certain influence in the local area almost lack the voice of action in the industry. However, due to the internal relationship between graphic design and economic development, Beijing does not lack the potential of design development. In recent years, some middle-aged designers have gradually joined the design team in Beijing. Designers such as Wang X have been engaged in design teaching, and have trained a group of young designers with social influence for Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, Central Academy of Fine Arts and other institutions. Generally speaking, the level of designers in Beijing is quite uneven, and designers lack unified organization and clear academic goals. From the perspective of style, a considerable number of designers still stay at the level of following western formal experiments, lacking originality and personal pursuit. Among the various categories of graphic design, Beijing has not yet formed any truly vital design school.
In contrast, graphic design in Shenzhen and Guangzhou started early, and had more exchanges with the outside world, which was highly valued and supported by the local government and media to a great extent, so it matured a lot. Shenzhen Design Exhibition 03 and the restoration of Shenzhen Graphic Designers Association are both great events in the history of contemporary graphic design in China, and the slogan of "Building the Design Capital of China" put forward by Shenzhen Municipal Government is the envy of other urban designers. In recent years, Ningbo has paid more and more attention to graphic design, and some local university designers, such as Jiang Hua and Pan Qin, have also made remarkable achievements in their design creation after teaching.
At this time, perhaps more importantly, we should break the pattern of binary opposition, realize the integrity of China graphic design, seek common ground while reserving differences, and devote ourselves to the construction and development of China design standards.
Design system for drawing the ground into a prison
Compared with other arts such as art, photography and calligraphy, the construction of contemporary design system in China is not satisfactory. First of all, there is no authoritative "Chinese Designers Association" in China, but only some local or unofficial designer organizations; Secondly, China's design lacks a national design exhibition supported by the government, which is very different from the behavior of some countries in the world that attach importance to design; Finally, in connection with the above system, China's design also lacks the corresponding mechanism of criticism, publication and academic exchange, which is extremely unfavorable to the design developed as an art. Unfortunately, these judgments have not been qualitatively improved after several years.
In recent years, in terms of design associations and exhibitions, there are several things worth mentioning. First, the China Artists Association set up a graphic design committee to participate in the planning of the 10th National Art Exhibition. Although this exhibition has not attracted as much attention as Shenzhen Design Exhibition 03 and China Graphic Design Exhibition 05, due to its "national exhibition" nature, some problems reflected are still worth pondering. Second, more and more Chinese mainland designers have become new members of the International Graphic Design Union (AGI). The two organizations have been incompatible with each other in the past. Due to the particularity of design, professional designers generally do not recognize the status of China Artists Association. On the contrary, they have high hopes for AGI, which was once considered as the highest level of international graphic design. However, in recent years, the performance of AGI seems to once again put forward the necessity and urgency of establishing an authoritative organization for China design by professional designer Qi Xin.
I'm afraid the China Artists Association can't stand the complicated situation in the field of design. Although animation, photography, calligraphy, design and other disciplines are currently enrolled and taught in the Academy of Fine Arts, in actual social operation, these disciplines often need to have their own independent associations, and "Artists Association" is naturally understood as an organization of painters. In fact, the number of people engaged in design in China is several times that of pure painters, and the total number of design students in the Academy of Fine Arts almost exceeds the sum of all kinds of "pure art". From this point of view, it seems that the Artists Association has included "design" in the category of "art" on an equal footing with all kinds of paintings, which is indeed disproportionate.
Optimistic external environment
In fact, design, as an art, is undoubtedly more closely and directly related to the daily life of the public than other arts aimed at performance or pure display. Therefore, in the sociological sense, design is indeed more conducive to the realization of the function of "aesthetic education", that is, "aesthetic education" and "modernity enlightenment". In other words, the aesthetic level and even the modernization level of a country are directly related to the design and creation level of that country; Similarly, due to the special conditions of design creation, the design level has to be subject to the aesthetic and acceptance of society, and its "advance" is only relative in the sense of social dynamics. But at present, it can basically be judged that the aesthetic and design acceptance level of the public in China is still at a relatively low practical level.
Take various graphic design categories as examples. In terms of logo design, following the publication of the widely questioned Beijing Olympic logo "China Seal" in 2003, two important foreign-related works, the Paralympic Games logo and the Shanghai World Expo logo, which have been released since 2004, are still difficult to be praised by professional designers and cannot reproduce the glory of Beijing's Olympic bid logo. In terms of stamp design, most of the works are still from the "Stamp Design Room of the State Stamp Issuing Bureau" system, which has not been collected or evaluated by professional designers, and is only low-level repetition, which is not good enough, and has lost many good opportunities to enlighten the public modernity by using stamp design.
In fact, some media and academic institutions have been consciously promoting the construction of this external environment, and design education has gradually gained a certain position in academic circles, which has attracted the attention of educational circles. Whether China's graphic design has the opportunity to take advantage of the east wind of the industry to create a new situation should at least be a problem worth looking forward to.
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