Hasta La Ideas

This system of illustrated characters and animations was developed to help people learn to read Chinese, and is one of the 76 projects nominated for Designs of the Year 2014 (+ slideshow).

Taiwan-born entrepreneur ShaoLan first began developing the Chineasy characters as a way to teach her own English-speaking children to read traditional Mandarin Chinese, by creating a visual connection to the words.

Having struggled to find a straightforward way to negotiate the huge number and complexity of Chinese characters, she teamed up with graphic artist Noma Bar to develop a system of shapes representing some of the most commonly occurring symbols, which can be combined to create more complex phrases.

“I created a methodology that breaks down thousands of Chinese characters into a few hundred base building blocks,” explained ShaoLan. “When these building blocks are combined, they form compounds that can in turn be combined to create phrases. Through this method learners can quickly build a large vocabulary of characters with very little effort.”

As well as providing users with a memorable way to understand the characters, Chineasy aims to offer those living in the West an insight into Chinese culture in a visual format.

“It is educational, social, cultural, and I hope, inspirational,” said ShaoLan. “I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and ancient culture with a modern interpretation through sleek modern design.”

The entrepreneur spent her evenings selecting and sketching suitable characters to form the building blocks of the Chineasy system, which she then modelled on her computer and refined to create contemporary graphic representations that could easily be understood by Westerners.

Having presented the initial idea at a conference organised by innovation forum TED that was published online in May 2013, the interest she received encouraged ShaoLan to begin working on a book and launch a Chineasy website and Facebook page.

A campaign launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter exceeded its goal of £75000, eventually achieving £197626 of backing that was used to publish the first Chineasy books.

The books are now being published by Thames & Hudson and an ebook and app have also been developed to illustrate how to write and correct stroke order through simple animations and give tips on pronunciation.

Chineasy was nominated in the Graphics category of the Design Museum’s shortlist for Designs of the Year and features in an exhibition at the museum until 25 August.

Here’s a project description from ShaoLan:

Chineasy

Chineasy’s aim is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. I want to give the west a real understanding of China and an appreciation of Chinese culture through their own eyes rather than layers of packaging and manipulation.

It is evident that people are hungry to learn about China. People are keen to be able to communicate with the 1.3 billion people. Tet there is not much out there to enable them to do so. Whilst the entire Chinese population is learning English, the west is struggling to comprehend this complex economy and society with their own eyes and judgment. Knowing their language is the key towards true understanding.

Chineasy will become the first step for anyone in the world who wants to understand China, Chinese culture and its language. It is educational, social, cultural and inspirational. I am demonstrating the beauty of this deep and broad culture through a modern interpretation using sleek and simple design.

Chineasy’s goal is to allow people to learn to read Chinese easily by recognising characters through simple illustrations. The magical power of the Chineasy method is that by learning one small set of building blocks, students can build many new words, characters, and phrases.

The post Chineasy illustrated characters designed
to make learning Chinese easy appeared first on Dezeen.

Visitors to Outline Editions gallery in London next week will be able to stamp out Noma Bar’s graphic artworks by feeding sheets of rubber and paper into the maws of a giant hole-punch shaped like a dog.

The machine’s profile is based on one of Bar’s designs and actually depicts a dog swallowing a cat, swallowing a mouse.

The Israeli designer uses negative space around blocks of colour to create a second, unexpected image in the outline of the first.

Noma bar will sign and number each piece produced at the Cut it Out installation, which will be on show from 17 to 30 September at 94 Berwick Street, London, W1F 0QF.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

The information below is from Outline Editions:

Cut It Out at The London Design Festival 2011

Interactive exhibition of new work from graphic artist Noma Bar

For this year’s London Design Festival, Outline Editions has invited the ingenious and award winning graphic artist Noma Bar to create a one-man show, the centrepiece of which will be his brand new installation, Cut It Out.

Noma will be creating an amazing, interactive art-making machine for the event. ‘Cut It Out’ is a specially commissioned, Heath Robinson-esque embossing device /sculpture in the shape of a giant dog, that will allow visitors to feed paper, rubber and other materials into
its mouth to produce their own cut-out Noma Bar images. These will be signed and numbered by the artist as part of a limited edition series. The prints and cut-outs will range in price from £20 to £300.

In addition to the show, Noma will be holding free live drawing and create-your-own-cut-out-art workshops at the gallery during the festival.

With this simple and clever new work, Bar delves deeper into a recurring theme – negative space. Alongside Cut It Out, the artist, fresh from a sell-out show in Paris, will be exhibiting a range of other new prints, displaying his imaginative mixture of ‘double-take’ imagery and biting social commentary. With bold colours, shapes and pared-down iconography, Bar can capture the spirit of a person or the heart of an issue with arresting clarity and humour.

In addition, for the duration of the festival, a separate section of the gallery will be devoted to a display of work by Outline Editions’ unrivalled stable of artists at the forefront of graphic art, including Anthony Burrill, Kate Moross, Beyond the Valley and Klaus Haapaniemi.

Following the London Design Festival, ‘Cut It Out’ will travel to the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, North East England for their 2011 Design Event Festival, 14th – 18th October.

Noma Bar was born in Israel in 1973 and graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in 2000. He moved to London in 2001 but it was during the first Gulf War that Bar developed his trademark combination of caricature and pictograms: while staying with his family in a shelter in Israel he sketched the likeness of Saddam Hussein around a graphic symbol for radioactivity that
he found in a newspaper.

Since then Bar has published over 1000 illustrations for magazines and books worldwide, including upwards of 60 front covers. His clients include The Economist, Wallpaper*, The New York Times, The Guardian, GQ, Esquire, IBM, Sony, The V&A and more. He has also released two books of his work, ‘Guess Who – The Many Faces of Noma Bar’ and ‘Negative Space’, to widespread critical acclaim.

Cut It Out runs from 17th to 30th September 2011 at: Outline Editions, 94 Berwick Street, London W1F 0QF

Opening times: 1100-1900, Mon-Sat

Live drawing and create-your-own-cut-out-art workshops with Noma Bar (free) on 17th and 24th September from 1400-1700 at Outline Editions.

See also:

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Dog or Bitch at Konarska-Konarski	Happily Ever by Kim HyunJoo	Cardboard dogs by Burnt Toast