Qian Qian: Drawing from the East

By Elise Malmberg

New York-based illustrator and graphic designer Qian Qian has traveled far in a short time — in every possible sense.

“I first heard the term ‘graphic design’ in 2000,” says the self-taught 28-year-old, who grew up in Chengdu, the capitol of China’s Sichuan province. Since then, his distinctive graphic style has appeared in ads and interactive work for such major international clients as Nike, Panasonic, and Motorola.

Qian uses Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and other Mac software to create art that merges Eastern and Western influences from different eras, from classical Chinese painting and 1930s Shanghai advertising to Cultural Revolution aesthetics, pop art, and the Japanese manga-inspired Superflat movement.

“Whatever strikes me visually, I take it in,” says Qian. “So many different things from different countries have influenced me. But I don’t want to just mix things — I want to add my own interpretation.”

Whether he’s working on a design project or an illustration, Qian’s approach encompasses both disciplines. “When I begin a project, I start as a designer,” he explains. “I really pay attention to the construction and composition of things. Later, with illustration, I become more personal and expressive. I prefer things that are really modern, minimal, and clean, like classic Swiss or German graphic design. But at the same time, I like complex, beautiful, illustrated things that are full of great details.”

Bless Fortune Longevity & Happiness, 2007

From Diplomacy to Design
Qian’s journey began in an unlikely place: China Foreign Affairs University, a Beijing school for diplomats. “I didn’t have a clear idea what I wanted to do after high school,” he recalls. “So my parents said, ‘Oh, you can be a diplomat.’ They picked out the school for me. But the only subject I enjoyed was English. I had little interest in things like political science and economics.”

His primary passion in college — playing bass in a band — seemed unlikely to provide a sustainable income, so Qian searched for a career alternative. “I was attracted by web sites,” he says. “It was something new, and something that didn’t seem very intimidating to get into. So I got a computer and started messing around.”

Armed with his first Mac — a secondhand PowerBook G3 — he started teaching himself design. “I asked people, ‘What would be the best computer for this kind of work?’ And they said, ‘Oh, it’s called Apple.’ They don’t call it Mac in China — they just say Apple, because it’s easier. At that time, in 2000, Apple was not at all well known in China, and when I saw the computer, I thought, ‘Yeah, that does look different.’ So I got it and started using it, and just loved it.”

East to West (and Back Again)
Qian began assembling a portfolio and decided to go abroad to earn a Master’s degree in a design-related field. He chose the new media program at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh. “It focused more on media studies than on graphic design,” he says. “It’s in the architecture department, so I was in touch with students and professors in architecture, social sciences, and other disciplines. They seemed to be thinking more broadly than general graphic design teachers. I learned how to see the bigger picture, and to think across borders while I worked on specific skills on my own.”

After graduate school, Qian was back in Beijing on vacation when an encounter with an American design teacher launched his next adventure. “A professor from Missouri State University was doing a workshop at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing,” he recounts. “He liked my work, and said, ‘Oh, you’re doing all this new stuff, and we have an opening for someone who can teach web design.’”

A year later, the offer and the work visa came through, and Qian moved to Springfield, Missouri. “I had no idea how the Midwest looked. It was a huge change!” he remembers. “I’d wanted to go to America, because my father had been to the United States a couple times, and always talked about how good it was. He even regrets that I went to the UK to study rather than the States. So I thought, okay, I’ll take the opportunity and just go.”

Qian spent four years in the Midwest, perfecting his design skills while coaching students on new technology. “A lot of what you need to know is just self-education,” he notes. “If you need to learn Flash, you just go home and learn it. I’d tell students, ‘I can teach you the basics, but later on you have to play on your own.’ It’s the best way to learn, I think.”

‘What Makes Shanghai Addictive?’ poster, 2007

Interactive Opportunities
In May 2007, Qian was commissioned to create display materials for the prestigious One Show Interactive Awards, presented each year by the One Club, a nonprofit association in New York that promotes excellence in advertising. This year’s event theme, appropriately, was China.

“The One Club does activities in China every year to promote the creative industry, and they also have a programs branch in China,” Qian says. “They asked the Chinese office to recommend somebody, and that somebody was me. Since they were planning a Chinese theme, I think they wanted a designer who was authentically Chinese.”

The One Show Interactive Awards — one of three annual events produced by the association — honor achievements in various interactive media, from email campaigns to website ad banners. In his design materials, Qian gave the meaning of the word “interactive” a unique spin.

“It’s an interactive event, so what is the Chinese way of being interactive?” he asks. “I think game-playing is the oldest way to interact. So I used images of children playing traditional games.”

For the event’s signature illustration, smiling children in 1960s space helmets ride the One Show’s signature award — a double-ended golden pencil — accompanied by a small panda mascot, which also appears in various other illustrations by Qian. “My hometown is in the Sichuan province, and that’s where the panda is,” he remarks. “So I thought yeah, that’s a cute character, and I think these Chinese children need a pet. And the natural pet for them would be a panda.”

Qian’s stylized Chinese children roll hoops, fly kites, and play hopscotch in the artwork for various award categories. For the backgrounds, Qian manipulated traditional New Year celebration images in Photoshop to create texture and depth while adding to the overall theme of celebration and play.

The artwork was projected on ten large screens at the event, and related designs appeared on event posters, programs, banners, t-shirts, tote bags, and a CD-ROM. He drew the characters in Illustrator, combined them with the background images in Photoshop, and created Flash animation sequences for each of the twelve award categories.

Direct-to-Disk Drawing
Rather than using pen and paper or a graphics tablet, Qian draws everything with a mouse directly into his Mac.

“I just open Illustrator and use the pen tool,” he explains. “For me, that’s the most intuitive way, because that’s how I started to draw things. Other people might have training from an early age with pens and brushes, but the Mac is my main tool. It’s so easy to add and change things — if a line’s not the perfect curve I want, I can always go back and drag things around. It gives me total freedom of control, which I think it great. The more I use it, the more I feel the mouse is the best tool for me.”

Qian’s primary computer is a 17” MacBook Pro with a 20” Cinema Display and a Logitech mouse. “The MacBook is amazing,” he says. “It’s simply the best. And using the Cinema Display makes it feel even more vibrant. Macs can do everything — it’s the standard language in the creative industry, and you have to speak the language to communicate with others.”

Qian finds it ironic that although most interactive design work is created on Macs, designers still need to check their work on PCs. “Most people are still using PCs, so you have to pay attention to that platform,” he says. “A lot of times things don’t look the same on PCs, which is a challenge. The rendering of typography is so much better on Macs. The HTML text and the graphics just look a lot better.”

China Shadow, 2006

Designs on the Future
Nowadays Qian pursues his own work as well as working for ad agencies. He hopes to establish his own creative label at some point, but not just yet. “I still have a lot to learn,” he admits. “I’ve only been doing graphic design for seven years!”

Qian enjoys the creative freedom of solo projects, but also values the experience he gets working in larger firms. “Whenever a client approaches me, they already know what they want from me. I can be really, really individual in the work. But working for a company is important too, because you see the bigger scale of things, especially with big international clients. So much complexity goes into the projects — there’s a whole team involved, things might need to be translated, and there are many business things to consider. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but it’s good to learn the process.”

Whatever the future brings, Qian’s multicultural, multi-layered sensibility should guarantee no shortage of creative options. “Your style is your point of view,” he states. “It’s like cuisine — it’s the flavor you put in there. I don’t have just one style, though I may be on the way to arriving at one. A lot of established illustrators have one thing that they do, but I find it hard to repeat myself. I guess that could be a good thing, because I have years to go!”

About

Qian Qian (b. 1979) is a Chinese graphic designer, illustrator and art director based in New York City. One of the “20 under 30 New Visual Artists” by Print magazine, he has worked with such clients as Nike, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, and Motorola. His work has appeared in many international design publications, and exhibited in V&A Museum in London, and Lincoln Center in New York. He has a Masters degree in digital media design from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and had taught graphic design at Missouri State University, USA. In 2005, He initiated and co-curated Get It Louder, a ground-breaking design exhibition in China’s Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. He was also a judge for 86th ADC Annual Awards.