Black and white
The Wind from East, which garnered the Grand Prix Savignac at the Salon, doesn't have a lot of colors, and the design is minimalist-two calligraphy brushes resting on a twig laden with pear blossoms, complemented by cheery Chinese calligraphy by Tung Yang-tzu and a sea of blank space. The effect is as startling as it is pleasing. The blank space, in particular, makes a strong impression.
Chen stresses the importance of blank space in design. "If you can improve a design by leaving blank space in it," he says, "it means you are not just focusing on the image, but on the entire layout." Before designing The Wind from East, Chen had already determined that it would include a lot of blank space. Chen feels that leaving white space is more difficult to master than the actual artwork, because all that space can easily end up looking excessive, or even downright vacant. That is why he is so careful about blank space. Besides, white and black are two of his favorite colors.
Chen explains his predilection for black: "Colors that are too loud lack maturity. I like calmer colors, such as black, white, and gray. Even when I use other colors, bright reds and greens are never dominant. I like to moderate them with grays or blacks." One of his favorite American magazines is B&W, which contains all black-and-white photos. Some black-and-white photos by master photographers appear time and again in the magazine, but no one gets tired of them. On the contrary, they offer the viewer a feeling of calm and harmony.
Covering all the angles
Ever since boyhood, Chen always loved to draw and had a taste for anything aesthetically pleasing, but as a university student he veered off in an unfamiliar direction and studied printing design. He explains that when he was preparing to take the university entrance exams and thinking about what major to select, an older student told him that if he was interested in design he should study printing and learn everything from the basics, so as to gain a thorough understanding of platemaking, color separation, photography, the use of paper, the feel of text, and packaging.
His friend emphasized that design cannot be accomplished merely through use of one's imagination, but has to be executed through the process of printing. He warned that a lack of expertise in printing will cause a designer to end up wasting a lot of time and effort. The advice was very enlightening, so Chen studied printing even though he wasn't interested in it. He put his nose to the grindstone, moreover, and did well in his studies. Looking back, he feels he made a very fortunate decision, because he is now well versed in every aspect of design work thanks to his background in printing.
Many think that graphic designers can only do magazine and book covers, but Chen never tires of letting the uninformed know just how wrong they are on that score. He notes that graphic design is required for a very wide range of items, including company brochures, annual reports, corporate image products, and even shopping bags. While people elsewhere see graphic design as being limited to preparing the covers of publications, Chen is busy expanding the scope of his profession. Says Chen: "It would otherwise be very hard to make any progress, and my work would not turn any heads."
Chen quit his job at CommonWealth magazine nine years ago with plans to travel the world taking photos, and to enjoy a student's lifestyle once again. But Hewlett-Packard, having found out that he had left his job, asked him to design their company's desk calendars and greeting cards. In order to issue an invoice, Chen established Freeimage Design Co., Ltd. and began doing new sorts of graphic design. Since that time the trajectory of Chen's career has carried him into the realm of art, spelunking ever deeper into his own inner recesses and discovering hidden gems. The results just keep getting more brilliant, and closer to the essence of the man who creates them.
In truth, only innovation can create room for further creation. When a client, a reader, or a total stranger looks at Chen's creations, their eyes often light up with sudden realization: "Wow, graphic design can be done like that?!" Such an experience fires the imagination of the designer. New ideas flow forth and sparks fly in a chain reaction of inspiration.
Happy
Before The Wind from East-one of the Oriental Style posters-took the grand prize at the 2002 Salon International de l'Affiche, Chen's Happy had already been nominated for an award at the previous year's Salon. He has also been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the Hong Kong Designers Association, and was nominated for an award at the International Poster Triennial in Toyama, Japan, in 2000.
The jury at the Salon International de l'Affiche said that Chen's work showed a spirit of decency that has practically disappeared from the world we live in. They felt his work was free of contention, antagonism, fear, and pretension, and that it was imbued with a spirit of human caring.
Most people regard text and artwork as two separate and unrelated matters. Chen believes otherwise, and is equally accomplished in the production of both. His work Happy, which was nominated for a prize at the 14th Salon International de l'Affiche, is a good showcase for both of these talents, and he has also won awards for posters in which text was an important element. It has been said that Chen excels in "playing a note that is perceptible to the soul, but not to the senses." His text lingers in the mind, one of the most examples being a poem that he wrote for La Bastide Trading Company, a wine importer.
Fun with puns
Chen recently joined forces with three designer friends to write a book entitled Fun 4, and he is also planning to assemble his travel photographs, taken over many years, into a photo exhibit to be called Dong Zhang Xi Wang ("Eastward Gawk, Westward Gander"). Both of these titles are laden with double entendres. Fun 4 is first of all a reference to the book's four collaborators. At the same time, the Chinese expression fang si (pronounced the same in Chinese as "Fun 4") can mean "unbridled," which describes the approach of the four authors in their quest to express different aesthetic viewpoints. "Eastward Gawk, Westward Gander" is a playful title for an exhibit of photos taken by Chen on his world travels, and an appropriate one for someone from the Far East who has been roaming the Western hemisphere. It helps to read the man's writings with a sense of humor!
Chen admits that at first he found it very difficult to write these short pieces of text, but he is not one to shrink from a challenge. When something isn't up to snuff, he just starts again from scratch and keeps at it until he gets it right. Now he actually enjoys writing text more than he does doing the artwork.
Chen attributes his success to the fact that he comes from a publishing family. His father and elder brother both work in publishing, so from a very young age he often read things written by adults and just naturally developed an interest in reading. As a university student he studied photography, and he designed all the books that his family published. In all, he figures that he has designed the covers for some 350 books. Thanks to his long training, he is now capable of both designing and writing.
Chen advises young people in the field to build up as much experience as possible. He says that in the field of design, you cannot succeed without "looking," "listening," and "doing" as often as possible. Says Chen: "When you're talking with friends, you can't speak articulately about something you haven't really digested, and it's the same with design. If you can't do something well, it means you don't really understand it."
Cool colors, warm heart
Chen reads a monthly average of 15 domestic and overseas magazines, from which he continually picks up new ideas and inspiration. In addition, he also goes traveling in order to absorb other cultures. He feels that different cultures can stimulate a designer's creative processes, and visiting them also serves as a reality check, because it gives him a chance to see whether he's in a rut and failing to keep pace with today's fast-moving society. That's why he also takes pains while traveling to closely observe how people eat, drink, and go about their lives. And he makes it a point to strike up conversations with strangers. He feels this is very important to an artist, and says that he has come up with many of his creative ideas while out traveling. In order to observe more carefully, he usually travels by himself. It is a lonely way to travel, yet immensely rewarding.
While Chen goes in for cool colors, he is nevertheless a very warm-hearted person. A few years down the road, after 20 years in design, he plans to retire and do volunteer work with the elderly. In the course of his work, Chen often sees images in the media where elderly people are shown suffering in isolation, and it bothers him. That is why he has decided to devote most of his energies to helping the elderly after he retires. Could this sentiment be precisely the thing that allows a feeling of warmth to show through despite the cool colors that predominate in his art work?
The Oscar of Poster Design: The Grand Prix Savignac
(Chang Meng-jui/tr. by David Mayer)
The Grand Prix Savig-nac, awarded at the Salon International de l'Affiche, a poster art exhibition held in Paris, is the most important poster art award in the world. According to Flavie Dupuy, an official at the Institut Francais de Taipei, the Grand Prix Savignac is sanctioned by UNESCO, which provides funding and a venue for the event.
The grand prize is named after Raymond Savignac, one of France's greatest poster artists of the age. Savignac, who died on October 28, 2002 at the age of 94, rose to fame after World War II with his "Monsavon Cow" poster series. In 1995, the French government engaged Savignac, already 87 years old at the time, to create a series of anti-drug posters, thus highlighting the importance of the poster prize named after him.
France is a great cultural melting pot, and the people there have a keen appreciation for many different cultures, especially those of the East, as evidenced in recent years by the fact that Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang have all won numerous cinema awards in Europe. The French are quite knowledgeable about the cultures of the Orient, including Taiwan. According to Flavie Dupuy, it is not hard to understand why Oriental style is so popular in international design circles.
Previous winners of the Grand Prix Savignac are Per Arnoldi (Denmark) in 1992, Stasys Eidrigevicius (Poland) in 1993, Rafal Olbinski (USA) in 1994, Shigeo Fukuda (Japan) in 1995, Milton Glaser (USA) in 1996, O-Young Kwon (Korea) in 1997, Carine Lank (Sweden) in 1998/99, John Au (Hong Kong) in 1999/2000, and Luba Lukova (Bulgarian-American) in 2001.
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