Receiving A Fan
Senior Projects | 2019 | 11 x 155”
THESIS STATEMENT
The legend is of a young man and woman who fall in love, but the man must go work on the great wall and he dies. His wife, Meng Jiangnu, feels that he might still be alive, so she travels to the Great Wall where she finds her dead husband. The legend is a true classic and shows how anyone can make a difference. The book will be unique, and it will be just as visually interesting as the legend. Can this classic Chinese tale be retold to a Western audience, while still keeping the integrity of the original story?
LEGEND
The legend takes place during the Qin Dynasty where the maiden Meng Jiangnu meets the love of her life. He is running away because he does not want to work on the great wall, for he knows that it is a death sentence. On their wedding night the law catches up to her husband and he is sent to go work on the wall, where he soon dies. Meng senses that something is wrong and travels to the wall were she discovers that her husband is dead. She curses the emperor and is arrested. Once the emperor sees how beautiful Meng is he decides that he wants to marry her. Meng is fast on her feet and says yes if he agrees to three conditions. One: has a nice lot of land next to the wall dedicated to husband, and has him buried there. Two: has a full funeral for him were he all his nobles must attend. Three: makes a beautiful tall bridge on the land. He obliges and when all the nobles are there during the funeral she gets on the bridge and tells the emperor how terrible he is and jumps from the bridge to her death. The empress yells at the emperor and tells him that for eternity he will be remembered as a terrible ruler. Then she gives the couple a proper burial together, where they rest in peace.
RESEARCH
I’m very interested in other culture’s myths and legends so I started off knowing that I wanted to my thesis based off of a legend. I wanted to pick something out that is not well known in America and that has meaning that we could take away from it. So it could bridge our cultures together. I started listening to an amazing podcast called Myths and Legends where I found the legend of Meng Jiangnu and the Great Wall. It has romance, tyranny, and standing up for what’s right no matter the cost. I fell in love with the story and I knew it was just what I was looking for.
INFLUENCE
I looked to designers Wolfgang Weingart, Willi Kunz, and Hansje Van Halem for inspiration. Above is some of their work. I appreciate the way that they handle form and text.
Three spreads towards the beginning of the book.
The Last three spreads of the book.
FORM
I quickly realized after doing some research that this needed to take the form of an accordion book. Accordion books were first made in Asia. It was invented to accommodate scrolls that had become unmanageable because of their size and length. Accordion books are also long like the great wall. I found some amazing images of a map that I wanted to base my sizing on. I first started with the size of each page would be 6x14 in and after printing out some sketches I realized that wasn’t quite right. I then settled on the size of 5.5 x 11 in, which makes the book 155 in long.
TEXTURE
I was inspired by the texture in art and maps from the Qin Dynasty. I looked back at some sketches I did on a school trip to Ludington, MI the previous fall and found some interesting work. I scanned in some of the work and ended up using it as my textured background.
BRICKS
I loved the idea of incorporating wabi-sabi into my design. My definition of wabi-sabi is Letting go of control and letting nature take over. Finding perfection in the in chaos. I then researched the ratio of the bricks that are used in the great wall and cut out paper and dropped them into the scanner and blew on them, moved them around without looking trying to get them to land naturally and not have me compose them. I then took those sketches and digitalized them and started working.
SOURCES
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Dair, C. (1967). Design with type. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/qing_4/hd_qing_4.htm This is a photo of the Terracotta Warriors that Emperor Qin made.
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10 of the World’s Most Famous Legends. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://exemplore.com/misc/Famous-Legends
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