10th United Designs Biennial 2021 Online

Online exhibition opening_Wednesday, October 13 at 11:00 pm MICHIGAN, USA

Messages to Humanity

Poster Exhibition

Our world is in crisis because we lose ‘Love and Forgiveness’ over our desires. Greed leads us not to trust and care for our neighbors and living in the world. This exhibition is a collection of the messages — Love and Forgiveness — to realize our coexistence in this fragile world. Each nation and culture has positive quotations about ‘Love and Forgiveness’ designed to better understand themselves as responsible citizens in society. These unique posters represent those cultural quotations around the world. Each designer expresses the message through the typography of their writing system.

Most importantly, all participants share their kindness with a good heart. All visitors will realize our existence in the world from the exhibition of the designers’ personal experiences. Furthermore, we hope that designers and visitors will practice ‘Love and Forgiveness’ to make this world safe and harmonious for us and the next generation. 

Online SYMPOSIUM_Wednesday, October 13 at 1200 pm MICHIGAN, USA

6th GVC 2021

Global Visual Culture Symposium

“The Visuals distinguish a Culture from the Cultures.” (Albert Young Choi, c. 2009)

We are connected as human beings in many different ways, but the essential connection among people is communication-based visuals. Over our human history, we have created visuals to share the similarities and to differentiate the dissimilarity. Those historical artifacts become cultural icons for the particular culture, nation, and race. We humans have created visuals to decorate these artifacts; the artifacts are the visuals. Even in today’s complicated network of people, fundamental communication will never change the visuals that we understand. The Global Visual Culture Symposium (GVC Symposium) gathers educators, practitioners, researchers, thinkers, and students in the visual communication design disciplines. We share our thoughts and find our communication for our generation and beyond.

Mediator: Robert Hower
UDA Vice President of Design Education
Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington

Presentations

Together in Sport: A Graphic Design Case Study from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Agora

by Kelly Salchow MacArthur
President of United Designs Alliance
Professor of Graphic Design at Michigan State University

The Olympic Games culminate the athlete’s many years of sacrifice and effort. The Olympics are the destination after a long, painful, arduous journey that tests physical, spiritual, and mental will. During this brief two-week span, the world turns its attention to the feats of amateur athletes who may generally be otherwise inconspicuous. Olympic Culture is a global sisterhood and brotherhood of respect for this peaceful and unparalleled experience. 

As an Olympian Artist in Residence, I designed 5 Noren curtains (traditional Japanese panels hanging at entryways) to visualize resilience, determination, optimism, and global solidarity ingrained in sports and cultural values. This case study will share the creative process and the results of the project. 

Augmented Reality for Packaging: Exploring Identities. 

by Linh Dao
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at California Polytechnic State University

Beverage labels captivate and fascinate. Some excite with promises of novelties, while others connect deeper, reaching for similarity or intimacy. Yet they all have one thing in common: they vary in their levels of authenticity. Designers tell stories for their clients. Some never get to tell their own. 

A package design expresses brand identity and personal identities, in addition to building relationships with consumers. In the classroom, such a project should encourage students to tell their own stories, especially if they belong to an underrepresented or marginalized community.

My presentation explains how augmented reality can be used to add interactive storytelling elements to a traditional beverage label package design. It outlines the appropriate parameters of such a project for a graphic design classroom, including contextual background, technology implementation, and limitations. It also includes student deliverables consisting of print designs and augmented reality extensions playable on mobile devices.

Exploring the Beauty of Korea Utilizing “Hangeul-Gak” Typography

by Dr. Albert Young Choi
Emeritus President of United Designs Alliance
Professor of Communication Design at Hanyang University ERICA, Korea

Letters are an essential element of typography that gives meaning to humanity as symbols. These symbols become sounds and transmit to the flow of air. In a while, the sounds remain as a picture and become a memory.

I explored Hangeul typography for the last three decades and found the Hangeul-Gak style, which is the critical style of my design and art. Hangul-gak is the expression of Hangeul itself, in which letters become sounds but become pictures and symbols. Hence, the picturesque representation of Hangeul-gak typography designs emphasizes Korea’s unique culture and identity and creates a new form and style. Therefore, I am pleased to show my past and present Hangeul-Gak typography experiments in the presentation. 

I continue experimenting with Hangeul-gak typography to find the answer; the question has never existed.