Mengyu Cao
Graphic Designer
United States of America
3
AWARDS
Mengyu Cao, the founder of Yiqi Hanzi, started to create character drawings as an interest in Chinese cultures and characters. As a Chinese herself, living in a foreign country, she wants to have a closer relationship with her inheritance. She has a design background. When she decided to go for a designer as a career rather than an artist, she knew that design is more than express oneself, it is a tool to make the world an easier and better place. It is a tool to help people. At the beginning of her design journey, she learned a lot of Chinese traditional culture. She was taught to have the mission to deliver valuable Chinese traditional cultures to the modern world, to enhance and spread it to the nation and the world. When she had an opportunity to explore her interest in her career. She dived into Chinese cultures and found out there weren’t many creative creations around Chinese calligraphy compare to English lettering. She can design and to draw, so she started to explore more possibilities of the traditional assets, Chinese characters. After a few years of posting her work on social media, it was said by a lot of Chinese language learners that her Chinese creative drawing & typography helps them to learn and memorize Chinese characters rapidly. The mission of Yiqi Hanzi is to deliver the beauty of Chinese characters and cultures to the word.
EDUCATION
2017, Design & Tech, Parsons School of Design, NYC/USA
2015, Visual Communication, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communications, Beijing/China
WORKING EXPERIENCES
2017-2018, Designer, Clade, NYC/USA
2018-2019, Designer, Shiseido Americas, BOSTON/USA
2019-2020, Product Designer, Core Wellness, San Francisco
AWARDS AND PRIZES
2021, Special mention, German Design Award, German
SELECTED PROJECTS
Chinese Zodiac
FUNCTION:
Typography
LOCATION:
San Francisco
YEAR:
2020
ABOUT
The Chinese Zodiac project combines Chinese calligraphy and watercolor drawing to present each character with its meaning. With design thinking, it breaks the traditional Chinese calligraphy forms and adds creative drawings to it harmoniously to show the meaning of each character. Chinese characters always look like complicated drawings to people who don't know Chinese.This project is aimed to make it understandable to everyone to spread Chinese culture. The 12 Chinese zodiac includes Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.
PHOTO CREDITS:
Mengyu Cao
COPYRIGHTS:
Mengyu Cao
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ABOUT
PHOTO CREDITS:
Mengyu Cao
COPYRIGHTS:
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PHOTO CREDITS:
COPYRIGHTS:
Mengyu Cao