A century of graphics

Chinese Graphic Design in the 20th Century

We look to the US or Europe or even South America for reference or inspiration but things are changing. This book shows us what our ‘new masters’ were looking at, in their everyday lives, for the last 100 years.

Authors Scott Minick and his partner Jiao Ping are well positioned to undertake this task, having worked as graphic designers in the US, France and Hong Kong. We don’t immediately associate China with commercial advertising so this book throws up some interesting surprises. There are 285 illustrations, 150 in colour, dating back to the early 1900s with the final illustration created in 1989, a poster protesting against the massacre in Tiananmen Square. First published in hardback in 1990 it’s now re-launched in paperback – it amazes me that they did not update the book to include what’s happened in the last 20 years.

There is a fascinating introduction on the history of Chinese graphic design explaining the ‘ying and yang’ or harmony in all areas of Chinese civilisation. It is only a couple of pages in length but gives the reader an idea of the very important place China holds in the history of print and design. We are reminded that the Chinese had developed techniques of paper making, block printing and movable type long before we did in the West and because of this there is a long history of design, particularly book design in China.

The book is laid out to give the reader an introduction into the trends that influenced Chinese designers in the 20th century – there are reproductions of posters, advertisements, book covers, magazines and other graphic material. The main figure that dominated design in China was Lu Xun – one of the first writers and designers to use images on book covers. Before this, simple hand painted calligraphic titles were the norm.

Lu Xun was influenced by Western styles and he married West and East to create his own unique style. During the ’20s and ’30s Shanghai was a very cosmopolitan city that attracted people from all over the world, in 1932 there were 70,000 foreigners living there. Even now Chinese people view Shanghai the way people in middle America view New York.

In this melting pot of sophistication, the advertising industry flourished. Magnificent graphics were used in the marketing of cigarettes and beauty products but with a unique Chinese version of the Art Deco style. These ads were aimed at the rising middle class and in particular the new independent Chinese woman.

It is difficult to believe that these modern images date from the ’20s and ’30s. ‘Shanghai Style’ was overtaken by a more conservative ‘national design style’ that grew in the 1940s which was heavily influenced by Russian Constructivism and in particular the work of Alexander Rodchenko. The authors have broken these complex periods into chapters ranging from the ‘Shanghai Style’ to ‘The Turbulent Years’ which looks at the socialist realist period dominated by Chairman Mao. Like most countries, China went through a renewed interest in early folk art that fuelled the revolutionary machine of the 1960s and ’70s.

In the 1920s and 1930s and again in the 1980s there was a much more open graphic style whereas in the 1960s and ’70s art and design was controlled by the government and celebrated the “Glory of the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers” and was highly propagandist in style.

The book opens by focusing on a style of graphics that coincided with the fall of the Qing dynasty and the student protests of May 4, 1919, and closes with graphic work that was created to commemorate the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This in itself shows how important graphic design was in Chinese modern history. Any casual reader looking at the images displayed in this book will literally see a visual history unfolding between these two milestone dates.

Apart from Lu Xun, who dominated Chinese design in the first half of the 20th century, we are introduced to the work of many other designers including Tao Yuan-quing, Qian Jun-tao and the more contemporary Wang Yan-lin who designed the poster for the film The Horse Thief (1986). These names were not familiar to me before I came across this book, but reading Chinese Graphic Design In The Twentieth Century by Scott Minick and Jiao Ping has given me a curiosity to go further and find out more – and in particular to find out what happened in the 20 years since this book was written.

- John MacMonagle is a director of Raven Design based in Cork since 1993. He recently hosted a reception for the Chinese delegation visiting Cork from Shanghai EXPO 2010. www.ravendesign.ie