Interview with "New Design List" - Han Zhanning: Dialogue with Ou Ning

Han Zhanning: Ou Ning Hello, as a colleague, I always appreciate your design; but, I think you are not just a graphic designer, I do not know if you think so?

Ou Ning: My scope of work is very complex, but it is related to culture and art. Design is just one of the jobs. I'm a graphic designer, but at the same time I'm still something else. I often don't know how to introduce myself because of too many characters and identities.

Han Zhanning: As far as I know, your other identities are also very eye-catching, such as music planners, independent publishers, freelancers, pioneer culture, etc. Do you think so? How do you define your own social role? And how to distinguish these roles?

Ou Ning: Actually all these roles are related to each other. For example, to do music promotion, you need to have a good publication to express your musical ideas; and to produce a good book, you need a good manuscript and a good one. design. There are many things I like to do for myself. On the one hand, I don't have enough resources to organize large-scale operations. On the other hand, I like to use my own hands-on spirit.

Han Zhanning: Actually, I think that the effect of these roles is not addition to you, but multiplication. It promotes each other and will make your design develop more quickly.

Ou Ning: A good design is not just the creation of a graphic. It is the result of a combination of many intellectual tasks. Being involved in different fields, playing different roles will allow me to maintain a broad perspective and allow my design to have more information. The key to design is ideas, and good ideas need talent, education and time to hatch. As much as possible to understand and feel the world around you, it will definitely help in the development of design ideas.

Han Zhanning: Then when did your graphic designer's character enter? It seems that you were not originally designing. Why did you make this change?

Ou Ning: After I graduated from college, I started to work in the advertising industry and started to work on graphic design. At first, I was just a copywriter. Later, I edited “plane” for the newly established Shenzhen Graphic Design Association and started to understand a lot of international design information. My design writing started early, but I really started designing myself in 1998 because I didn't want to fake the hands of others.

Han Zhanning: The initial difficulties of becoming a graphic designer? As an intruder, how are you accepted by everyone and how do you conduct business?

Ou Ning: When I decided to enter the design community, I was well prepared. I do not imagine that most people in this industry are obeying the requirements of customers, so I developed my own design project independently. The original project of Beijing New Voice was an independent publication. I invested a bit of money for early interviews and filming. Later, it was supported by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House. It was completely a project that fully embodied my own ideas and published. Society did not add any opinions. The purpose of my book is to impact the domestic concept of publishing. It is also a record of the growth of a generation during the transformation of Chinese society. In this book, the idealization of musical culture has turned into confused text, stimulating images, and meaningful colors.

Han Zhanning: To do graphic design from the perspective of a wide range of cultural people involved in various cultural fields is different from natural designers. How do you see this difference and what effect does it bring to you?

Ou Ning: For design cases like Beijing New Voice, I spent much more time planning and editing in the early stage than the late stage design. As a publication designer, the biggest difference I have with other designers is that I attach great importance to editing. A good editing program, plus a little bit of design power is enough. For me, designing is just an effective tool in the hand. It can form visual impact and increase the intensity of communication, but it is not my ultimate ideal.

Han Zhanning: From your perspective, do you see whether you think that simple graphic designers have limitations? If so, what do you think?

Ou Ning: The limitation of simple graphic designers is that they are only graphic designers. In addition, they know nothing about them.

Han Zhanning: Your design writing is well-known in circles. Why did you write in the beginning? What do you think design writing can promote and express? What is your quest in this area?

Ou Ning: At first I was attracted by some excellent graphic design work to start writing articles in this area. I think we should let more people know about this industry. At the beginning I wrote an interview with the first Chinese graphic designer. Later I began to introduce and comment on foreign designers like David Carson and Vaughan Oliver. Orthodox art critics cannot focus on graphic design at all. My writing is to excavate culture from design. I don't like domestic design publications, so most of my design articles are written for mass media.

Han Zhanning: Can you talk about your design concept? Many people think that your design is very special. What style or trend have you pursued?

Ou Ning: My design concept was influenced by the design ideas of the United States and Britain since the 1980s. Two design magazines have had a profound influence on me. One is Emigre magazine (United States) founded by Rudy Vanderlans and Zuzana Licko, and the other is Rick Poynor who was editor-ed of Eye magazine (UK). These two magazines can be said to be the headquarters of radical design in the 1980s and 1990s. The designers they introduced made my eyes wide open. In the 1980s, the designer I most admired was Neville Brody (design director of The Face Magazine); in the 1990s, David Carson (design director of Ray Gun Magazine). Vaughan Oliver is the best person to personally communicate with me. I met him on the 4AD record company in 1996 and only met in London in January this year. The above three designers all had a certain influence on my design.

Han Zhanning: I think the font in your design is always outstanding. Are you very interested in font design? But as a designer and reader, I really like your use of fonts.

Ou Ning: The use of fonts in design is actually a borrowing of other people's designs. I have always loved to use English fonts designed by the geniuses of Barry Deck, Jon Barnbrook and Zuzana Licko. They have added a lot to my design. In terms of Chinese fonts, it is rare to see any innovations, so I use more root-emotional fonts (such as Song).

Han Zhanning: Your attention to culture is particularly focused on the avant-garde culture. There are also many books published in this area. I have seen many of them, such as Beijing New Voice, Movie Talk, Movie Works, and Bid Book. Wait, I wonder why you care about and publish this?

Ou Ning: "Beijing New Voice" is about new music, "Pictures" and "Movie Works" are about art films, and "Beyond Volume" is my attempt to cooperate with mainstream media. It is about fashion and culture. This is an issue that I am very interested in. I want to share my feelings and understanding of these aspects with more people, so I will try to publish these books.

Han Zhanning: You also designed a lot of books on avant-garde art, such as Zhou Tiehai and Fang Lijun. What do you think about the influence of avant-garde art and other avant-garde cultures on graphic design?

Ou Ning: In my opinion, art and design are inseparable. In the end, good design should be art. The competition between artists and designers is their own creativity. Although I have designed many Chinese contemporary artists, I have not been influenced by their art. They are my clients. Their works are my design materials. What I offer them is a kind of professional design work. Our creative perspectives are different. Of course, design can fully draw inspiration from the arts. Design is the most inclusive and covers the most extensive work. I will not reject any useful materials and ideas.

Han Zhanning: As a designer you face your customers like this, I think you seem to not like to be a pure commercial customer, right? How do you make money?

Ou Ning: I am happy to work in the interest, always looking for the point of integration of survival and ideal. I'm not excluding commercial design, but trying to ask customers to give me freedom. I like to act according to my own will, but sometimes I may also give up the ideal.

Han Zhanning: Have you ever thought of expanding or establishing a company with a large scale? I see your assistant is very little?

Ou Ning: I thought about it, but running a company is not my long term. I saw a lot of expanding design companies. When the business grows and the number of people increases, you can easily fall into a transactional job. The possibility of direct creative work will be less and less. For creative people, creativity is more fun than business. I don't want to lose this kind of fun. Earlier this year, Rick Poynor edited and published for Vaughan Oliver his portfolio of twenty years of designing career. The thick one, how many designs he did, but his V23 studio has always had only three people. The combination of small and refined makes it easier to preserve the purity of creation.

Han Zhanning: Let's talk about your hobby. I think your hobbies are very extensive. Music, movies, poetry, painting, writing, tourism, wine tasting... It seems to be like everything.

Ou Ning: This is related to my curiosity. My curiosity about the unknown seems to be hard to meet.

Han Zhanning: What kind of position does design have in your mind, will you continue to develop in design?