Classical design and analysis of the times (1)

Speaking from Tsai Chin

"Midnight's radio, gently came a song ...", singing voice, "qin" rhyme Yiyi. When the pen was written, the old song of Tsai Chin was placed on the ear and was used as an opening sentence. Tsai Chin, a famous singer in Taiwan, has performed many songs such as "Your Eyes" and "Nanping Evening Bell" and many of her songs have become classics. When she talked about her classic work, she also hooked up with the topic of this article - "Classic design and its time." However, before discussing the "classic design" and its time, it may be worth looking at what is called "classic" and what is called "time."

First, classic design and its definition

"Modern Chinese Dictionary" (edited by the Dictionary Editing Office of the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Commercial Press, 1985 edition) explains "classic" 1:
1) refers to the traditional authoritative works;
2) Refers generally to the fundamental works of propaganda and teaching of various religions;
3) Authoritative works of the work.

The interpretation of "era" 2 is:
1) refers to a period of time historically based on economic, political, and cultural conditions;
2) refers to a period of time in an individual's life.
The above interpretation can be broadly extended as follows: the specific historical period derived from the classic traditions, namely, its epochal nature; its representativeness and deepness derived from its authority and so on.
Here are some examples to look at:

Example 1 is an ancient Tai Chi graphic in China. “The black and white contrast pattern of this swing movement uses a complementary relationship to form a well-organized 'Yin and Yang circle'”. 3 shows that things in the world are divided into two parts, day and night, with simple materialism. Dialectical view. Tai Chi graphics can be said to be an outstanding design of China's early period. It is not only simple and simple, but also shows the philosophical connotation of opposing dependence, reflecting the spirit of contrasting seeing the spirit of "contrast the brightness of the graphic beauty", 4 and not only that, Tai Chi graphics In addition to ancient Chinese philosophical thoughts, it also implies China's cultural spirit. It has the "idea of ​​integration of the two things, the two things that I have forgotten, and the thought of unity between the heavens and the people". 5 It has "the perfect unity of natural beauty and personality." 6 This simple Yinyinyang, within a black and white, has the mystery and mystery of infinity. For thousands of years and not outdated, it shows its long-lasting vitality.

The second example is the sign of China's railways. It consists of the two characters "work" and "person" of the deformation and implies the image of the rails. The whole also constitutes a locomotive pattern. The form is simple and harmonious, the impact is strong, and the recognition is good. "More valuable is the exact expression of the connotation - the People's Railway." 7

The logo is an expression of artistic design with a high degree of enrichment. A good logo should not only be concise, beautiful, easy to remember, but also ideographically accurate, distinctive in personality, and be able to perfectly combine the representational layer of the logo with the expressive layer. It is not easy to become a classic. Therefore, all of the above examples have extremely high aesthetic value and utility value. As an entry point, you can first define what a “classic design” is.

The so-called classic design refers to a design work that meets the trend (trend), aesthetic requirements, utilitarian requirements of a particular era, and is representative (typical) or commonality (constant). In other words, any work that has synchronic, constant characteristics, long-term effects, represents an era, and even spans an era can be called a classic design. Of course, the design here is not narrow, nor is it a small-scale design, but rather a large-scale, generalized design.

(to be continued)