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THE BEAUTY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS 01 02 Chinese Characters are the palm lines held in the hands of the Chinese nation. Following the lines, you can touch the secrets of the origins of Chinese culture. THE BEAUT Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS Origin of the Contest 03 Chinese Oracle, Egyptian Hieroglyph, Babylonian Cuneiform and Maya Hieroglyph are the four great ancient writing systems in the world. The long history of Chinese culture, including its development, spreading and inheritance, is reected in Chinese characters. This ensures the intact inheritance and the innovative development of Chinese characters in each era. Nowadays, Chinese is the only ideograph whose inheriting process has never been interrupted. Chinese characters, on the one hand, are the symbols that carry and spread Chinese stories and oriental philosophies. On the other hand, they contain the aesthetic elements of the Chinese style and its oriental charm. All these are the civilization achievements and cultural wealth that can be shared by the world's young designers. On 30th October in 2015, Beijing Institute of Culture Innovation and Communication, the organizer of this contest, held the launching ceremony of the contest, Chinese Characters --- A Living Culture, at the UNESCO headquarters. The ambassadors from a number of countries at the ceremony played characters. They also witnessed the global launch of the contest. Based on the disciplinary advantages of philology and cultural transmission of Beijing Normal University, collaborating with the practical strengths of creative design and visual communication of Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, this activity forms the transdisciplinary and collaborative innovation to promote the cultural communication of Chinese characters. This contest aims to encourage young people to understand the close connection between the profound connotation of Chinese characters and the Chinese culture, and explore the aesthetic values of Chinese characters beyond their function as communication tool. It also hopes to build a cultural bridge communicating between the young people from dierent cultural backgrounds, and THE BEAUT promote the oriental aesthetics of contemporary urban life through the creative design of Chinese characters. Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS 04 Theme Analysis Family, the eternal harbor of our souls, is not only the smallest unit of our society, but also the most fundamental origin of Chinese traditional ethics. The family relationship is a key in “self-cultivation and family harmony”. It’s the family where people get the most fundamental knowledge about society and thus begin to explore the world. A family is not only a house but also where kinds of relations belong to. The society is a big family in which all people perform their own stories about happinesses and sorrows to achieve their shared moral ideas. It’s the same kind of ethics that props up small families and big families. Family education is the basis for developing Chinese people’s values. We begin our journey to ourselves, the vastest universe. Family represents the most profound universe overhead, witnessing ups and downs of human beings in the long run of history. Chinese people stick to heavenly principles and eternal natural laws in the universe, which are more long-lasting than social ethics and help achieve a tacit agreement between human beings and the universe, while it’s just the family consciousness that connects heaven and natural laws together. From the commonly-used Chinese character “ 家 ”(jia, meaning family) in Chinese Oracle to Chinese characters closely relating to “ 家 ” like “ 室 ”(shi, meaning room), “ 堂 ”(tang, meaning hall), “ 安 ”(an, meaning peace), “ 宁 ”(ning, meaning quietness), “ 定 ”(ding, meaning stability) and even “ 宇 ” and “ 宙 ”(yu and zhou, meaning the universe together), we can really experience the changes in Chinese people’s daily life and the cohesion of family ethics. We have selected 30 Chinese characters with the same component “ 宀 ”, which are full of family wisdom and secrets of the THE BEAUT booming of the world. With the deliberation of global young designers, these 30 Chinese characters will be perfectly combined with colors, lines and shapes to produce creative design works featuring Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS Chinese ethical civilization. A harmonious family brings wealth and peace, and harmony in the family is the basis for success in any undertaking. This ancient oriental philosophy has become increasingly attractive across the world. Family is a basic element of human society. People’s desire and dependence on the eternity 05 of family has helped build a bridge between Chinese traditional family ethics and the world. With creative interpretations for 30 Chinese characters with the same component “ 宀 ”, young designers inject Chinese traditional family consciousness into vivid design works and show the whole world the stability of Chinese civilization with international and eye-catching design principles. A blend of cultural creativity and daily life can help display traditional family ethics, with which we can make THE BEAUT Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS 06 Consultants and Conveners Consultants WANG NING Joël Bellassen LI DAN YANG Chinese exegesis expert, Professor Joël Bellassen is the Inspector The current Beijing Gehua Cultural and Ph.D. adviser of Beijing Normal General in the eld of Chinese D e v elopmen t G r oup P a r t y University and the director of the Language Teaching at the Ministry of secretary and general manager, Institute of Chinese Information Education, France, Vice president of executive deputy director of the Processing. She is the key inheritor the International Society of Chinese Beijing International Design Week of “Zhang Huang School,” and Language, and a well-known French Organizing Committee Oce. He holds many patents in studying sinologist. He is in charge of the organized and hosted the music traditional Chinese characters. formulation and modication of production for the opening and Her work Principles of Scholiums France’s Chinese language teaching closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing connects scholium with modern curriculum and examination, as well Olympic Games, commemoration linguistics through the study of as the assessment and recruitment of of the 50th anniversary of the ancient scholium theories. She uses teachers of Chinese. He is a professor e stab lishme n t o f d iploma tic at Institut National Des Langues relations between China and France characters, which modernizes the Et Civilisation Orientales, the rst - the parade of France Machinery research tools of traditional Chinese Ph.D. adviser in the area of Chinese "Longma", Beijing International characters study. language teaching in Europe, the Design Week and other major THE BEAUT cultural projects. He was honored Association French and Teachers of as "Advanced Individual in National Chinese. Cultural Reform" and "2014 Chinese Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS Cultural Industry Person of the Year." 07 Convenors The Convenor on Visual The Convenor on the Culture The General Convenor Communication of Chinese Characters YU DAN CHEN NAN WANG LI JUN Famous cultural scholar, professor Tsinghua University Academy of Arts Beijing Normal University professor, and Ph.D. adviser at Beijing Normal and Design Doctoral Supervisor; Deputy doctoral adviser; Director of the University, director of Beijing Director of The Research Centre of Chinese Character division at the Institute of Cultural Innovation Ancient Chinese Characters Art; Deputy Chinese traditional classic Texts and Communication. As a cultural Director of the Visual Communication Research Center, a key social science communication scholar, she is Department; research institute supported by committed to promote classical Member of the China Artists Association; Ministry of Education; core member Chinese culture worldwide, and has Member of the Design Committee of of the “General Standard Chinese her unique thinking in the innovative China Packaging Federation; Beijing Character Table” development development and communication of Industrial Design Center director; team. Representative works include Chinese character culture. Selected by the Education Ministry's Cultural Interpretation of Chinese New C e n t u r y E xc e lle n t Tale n t s Characters, General Rules of the Supporting Plan; Contributing designer Chinese Characters. for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games mascots; Olympic torchbearer; Winner of the10 outstanding youth of China design industry. Designer of the world's THE BEAUT rst oracle font library, "Hanyi Chen style oracle". Y OF CHINESE CHARACTERS 08 Organizations Hosts Beijing Normal University Beijing Normal University, a key university under the administration of the Ministry of Education, is a renowned institution of higher education known for teacher education, education science and basic learning in both the arts and the sciences. The comprehensive disciplinary strength of Beijing Normal University puts the school at the forefront of the nation’s advanced teaching institutions. technology innovation and one of the national bases for talent development of high quality and creativity. Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University was formerly the Central Academy of Craft Art founded in 1956. In 1999, it was incorporated into Tsinghua University. With a long history, the Academy of Fine Arts has a well-designed academic structure with its own complete teaching, research and experimental facilities. It is