"It is said that British colleges and universities attach great importance to the commerciality of the collection of works", "The admissions officers of Huangyi seem to prefer the regional theme", "Saint Martin likes the creativity of the sky", as insiders of the art study circle, we are always keen to discuss these "inside information", hoping to summarize the style orientation of art collection preferred by some college admissions officers, So as to find some "high score strategies" for the creation of works collection; Among them, there are two styles that people prefer to choose: the first is the "Chinese style" represented by regional culture, and the other is the "international style" that attaches importance to function and commerce; Because these two styles will form two extreme directions in the specific implementation, which will also lead to a dilemma. On the one hand, it is to show the cultural characteristics of personal characteristics, and on the other hand, it is to face the functional needs of the commercial market. They are the focus of the investigation of British and American universities, so which style should we choose?
Style orientation of art works collection, Chinese style vs. international style:
In fact, we can choose both styles. The key is how to use these two styles correctly. To clarify this problem, we should first eliminate some "prejudices" against these two styles.
In recent years, Chinese elements have been paid more and more attention in different professional fields, including film, clothing and interior design, which has inspired many of our students. Since Chinese style is so popular in the international market, we should add some Chinese elements in our works, which should give the admissions officer a bright effect.
Fashion Bazaar Rihanna
But in fact, Chinese elements alone are not enough to surprise the admissions officers. In fact, Chinese style has been popular in Europe since 300 years ago, and has developed into an international decorative art; In addition, with the continuous increase of Chinese students studying abroad over the years, the admissions officers have read countless papers. They have long been accustomed to the collection of works with distinctive "racial advantages", and the review standards are increasingly high. This also means that if our application of Chinese style still stays in the piling up of visual elements, it can not go deep into the cultural level. Instead of highlighting our personal style, it will become self defeating and cause the admissions officer's aesthetic fatigue.
Burberry Chinese Spring Festival
The same is true of "international style". The internationalist style it represents, whether it is "less is more" in architecture, the supremacy of function in industry and product design, or the minimalist style in graphic design, actually advocates to reduce visual elements to a certain extent, and more to meet the functional needs of the commercial market.
Danish designer JOHAN VILADRICH furniture works
However, our collection of overseas works is mainly presented in visual form. If we blindly pursue this extreme tendency, we will give up the scores of colleges and universities for investigating some of our skills, and also lose the important internal appeal of our works, which is exactly what we do not want to see.
Rick Owens, a Gothic minimalist fashion designer
The style orientation of art works collection, Chinese style and international style, but despite these two "prejudices", we can still use these two styles to show the biggest advantage to the admissions officer. Next, we will talk about how to do according to specific cases!
Chinese style
We often say that "it is better to rely on a big tree to ride the shade". The Chinese culture with a 5000 year history and civilization is our best "big tree". Over thousands of years, with the change and transformation of dynasties, a variety of distinctive characteristics of the times and regions have formed. These are our constant source of materials.
Students majoring in natural light animation, design works based on the traditional stories in the Chinese classics of mountains and seas
However, we also know that overseas art colleges and universities attach great importance to students' "originality" and "personal creativity", so it is natural to say that to extract these design elements, we should not simply copy them mechanically, but should dig deep into their internal cultural connotation and recreate them based on understanding.
Students majoring in natural light animation, design works based on the traditional stories in the Chinese classics of mountains and seas
As for how to re create, we can choose two directions as divergence: the first is the theme. It means that students take Chinese culture as a major background for creation, and then study it according to a certain direction they are interested in. This point can be a certain region, traditional stories, ancient lyrics and music, or even any popular trend in modern China.
Then, according to the design process, research - find the problem - analyze, and finally, according to the analysis results, find the most suitable expression method to solve the problem. Qingwen, an overseas student of natural light clothing design, has a set of works inspired by Hong Kong films in the 1980s - happy events at home.
In fact, Hong Kong in the 1980s was a very special place. It not only had a strong deposit of traditional Chinese culture, but also was the first group to receive the impact of western popular culture.
Qingwen takes this "sense of conflict" as the creative point in her costume work. She combines the structure of traditional Chinese clothing with the clothing characteristics of American hip-hop culture in the 1980s. When these plump clothes wear on the lean figure of Asians, they also show a completely different cultural sense.
Another divergence point is the form of expression. Chinese style is not only expressed in "shape", but also in "artistic conception". That is to say, when students choose Chinese style themes, they do not use "culture" as a gimmick, but let the admissions officer understand that this is the correct way to open Chinese culture on a completely logical basis.
We can start with traditional techniques, materials and techniques. Natural light recording Royal College of Art One of her students, Zhiyi, was inspired by the traditional handicraft "wool rolling felt", which is often used by the Hui people in Ningxia. Zhiyi combined them with the silk elements commonly used by the Han people and designed a series of products such as handbags and fruit trays.
International Model
The choice of international style is relatively broad, and it does not even restrict our creative themes or forms of expression. However, if you want to create works with good international style, you should first correct your attitude towards this style, and do not use functionalization or minimalism as an excuse to omit visual transformation.
Students majoring in natural light graphic design can simplify complex animal forms into geometric design elements
We can focus on the specific distribution of "internal" and "external", but it must be based on a reasonable and complete basis. For example, when many students from zero foundation to major change their product design portfolio, because their hand drawing and software skills are relatively weak, they will feel that the creation process should "avoid shortcomings" and replace them with analysis charts and experimental processes.
But this is not a correct idea. First, appearance is an essential aspect of a complete product. Second, we imagine that the admissions officer is the consumer of the product. If the consumer only understands the function and imagines the appearance through the product description, it is difficult to leave a deep impression in this way.
On the contrary, if we design an appearance that highlights the product features with the product functions, even if the appearance is not really landing, it is just a concept map, but it can well carry the creativity of the work. And by comparing with a large number of actual research and data analysis, we can also show the admissions officer our complete creative ideas and focus on investigation points.
The student source of Natural Light is also a zero foundation to major student, but she has a good control over the distribution of appearance and function in the collection of interdisciplinary works. Among them, she designed a P2P energy trading mode and built an O2O service system based on charging stations and mobile applications.
Due to the lack of visual transformation skills, she did not do a complete design of the mobile phone terminal page in this set of works. Instead, after improving the entire product functions, she designed a concept map for the offline charging pile. Because the project site is located in Inner Mongolia, she borrowed the form of a "yurt". The overall appearance is very simple, But it highlights the characteristics of the product very well.
The style orientation of art works collection, Chinese style and international style, and natural light have introduced so many things to you. Finally, I hope you can correct your attitude towards style and not be too superstitious about the style orientation of colleges and universities. Although art colleges and universities usually have their own training direction or research field, this does not limit their choice of applicants. The style orientation of art works collection is not the standard, and high quality is our pursuit. No matter what students are interested in or inspired by, we still need to rely on the correct design thinking to create, and try to show our comprehensive strength comprehensively. Finally, what is favored by the admissions officer must be your own style!
Natural light shares more topics for you:
The Style Difference of Fashion Design Collections for Studying Abroad in British and American Countries
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Creation of overseas works collection of architectural design, 7 offers from British universities in 6 months
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