Design Theory: The national is not necessarily the world

Recently leisure to look at the property market, in the constant browsing of buildings and property design, found that a phenomenon has not been any change-completely western management and building structure with the Chinese propaganda and "taste", a contrast. Sales lady has always met three-point parents, people speak, to ghosts, you like Western style will tell you our house how modern, how simple, supporting how comfortable; you like Chinese style, there are old people at home, tell you how good feng shui, Hall more Fangzheng, structure more rigorous ... Well, foreign serve China, copycat, Chinese spirit, contain them.

No matter how much the building book and the Model Room want to reveal their own "Chinese culture"-ink, antique furnishings, screen, small bridge water ... But the whole atmosphere you can still smell the irrepressible rustic, that is not what a national art can be distributed charm. It reminds me that there are young or Loche on the internet who often say, "You don't have the design, you don't have the Chinese designer's own stuff." "Your style is too European and American, and lacks the connotation of Chinese culture." ”

Lu Xun's old man is right: "The more national the more the world", but there is a prerequisite, is inclusive, the idea of complementarity. The things that are designed, functional and communicated are not faulty, someone will always say: "Your things lack Chinese characteristics," as if this is a panacea, where all works, and can not be refuted-because the critics themselves can not accurately say "Chinese characteristics of what the design is."

I think that the national is not necessarily the world, especially in the design field, we should first of all the art and design, the nationalization contains too many things, including: history, language, ideas, objects, people, cultural phenomena. The embodiment of these things is not necessarily only Wenfangsibao, hippy Erhuang, poetry and four inventions. Some unhealthy ideas are appearing frequently in our design critics and increasing, and these distortions of national and national culture are nothing more than the following:

1. A narrow nationalist mentality

The process of globalization and modernization is unavoidable, and the excellent elements and quality of the national culture should be protected and developed, this is understandable, but too lofty to have a problem, do not recognize and learn the excellent culture of other countries, not conducive to our design to go healthy. China's traditional culture is good, but used in the design process, may not be able to very practical solution, such as our Traditional Chinese painting and opera are "retreat" of the composition of more, emphasizing the artistic conception, this in the design process can not solve the design problems, up to the visual taste to improve.

The history of modern design, China can export the so-called "design innovation" is very limited, the great artistic achievements in the ruling class consumption, the design market-oriented behavior is almost 30 years of things. Therefore, blindly criticize, do not think enterprising is the common disease of narrow nationalism, lack of tolerant mentality.

2. To make the national characteristics superficial

Many of our designers in the competition, the most used is ink, in the submission of manuscripts to customers, the most used is also ink, in the exhibition to Exchange design trends, or the use of ink, even our many masters in the international recognition, rely on is still ink ... It seems that our Chinese design circle has nothing but ink. This is a quick success of the superficial phenomenon, ink is very connotation, but with the ink designers are not all have connotations, when some master because it has been successful, such forms are repeatedly used for reference, even as a magic weapon of design.

And most like shouting "design to have Chinese characteristics," the design of the cry, we can try to ask them: "What do you think the design of Chinese characteristics should be visually?" ", needless to say, they think only:" Ink, Drama, Tang and song ci ... They may not know women's books, shooting, deep clothing, and the concept of dislocation to apply only a little bit of cultural knowledge to evaluate, but also appear to their own plunges.

3. Fear of Western design power

An interesting phenomenon is that a lot of "Chinese traditional culture and market integration phase development", "carry forward the Chinese traditional art and material culture, such as the big shots of the theme conferences, the works designed, the films produced, the songs sung, no one without the West has already had the commercial entertainment ingredients and design shadow. Even more ridiculous, most ears viewers and enthusiasts, because they have not seen, heard, understood, mistaken for the "elite" of the original.

This creates a sad fact that we are really behind, but we do not admit backwardness, design circle This is called "Critical learning" or "Salute to the Master", please stop, we are now too difficult to represent their own style of design, the UI design industry in the same way, Most companies have books on their shelves with the same group of Western UI theories, as a classic, visual icons and interfaces are so similar, 90% can find foreign industry famous works shadow; Expert forum and industry gathering is nothing but a trade card exchange conference and a reality show for foreign experts.

All these reflect our fear and worship of good design power, and the foundation of fear and worship is ignorance. If we do not want to be in the design of the European and American style of creation bottleneck, we should first learn it comprehensively, analyze it, find the right part of us, and then the corresponding optimization. But most people choose to study comprehensively, and then put some superficial learning results into the benefits of profit, then the industry how to develop my bird.

4. The lack of a national cultural self-adjustment

After China's "movement", what else do we do better than the superhuman speed of economic development and cultural heritage?

The traditional culture and the modern culture have already produced the serious diaphragm, therefore, the lack of independent thinking ability of the crowd divided into two sides, the overall westernization of the young people do not like to, choose to drink Cola, play rock, dyed golden Retriever, Non-mainstream; the Duddy chose umbrella, enclosure, high barrier, re-education way, Trying to kill the poisonous weeds in Europe and America, the most advantageous weapon in hand is GFW ...

At this stage of the history of the designers are the most difficult, the former has to carry forward the family heirloom, after a menacing new trend, how to grasp? What I want to say is that the design is open, only to solve the problem, to serve the user's long-term development of the design to live, any style of the design of the germination and withering depends on its real value, shouting and speculation is not useful, so that the design of Chinese characteristics to develop better, only the market and user support, policy and innovation of the combination of Designers of unity and efforts, or ink can not save the gem.

Narrow nationalism is not desirable, we have had too many losses in our history; the cultural factors of nationality should be embodied in the design, which need a long time development and accumulation, not by several designers, some design associations can do it; the experience of western modern design and the successful operation case must be the example of our study. But we can not copy and the slick of the whole brain, and finally, the designers will know to upgrade themselves to surpass others, rather than simply emphasizing the national culture of laceless cloth, let oneself embattled.