Discussion on Chinese Character Logo Design (I)

The logo design has a rich and varied manifestation. From the shape, there can be seen not only the pattern (image) form but also the character (word) form. Many famous symbols are designed by the characters. The use of text as a symbol for creative signage has strong artistic expression and visual appeal. It is an important part of logo design and a new guide for sign design in recent years. As a visual symbol of information media, Chinese characters contain specific modeling concepts. People use the “shape” that is unique to the text to convey information, and through the understanding and understanding of shapes, they are transformed into “tones” other than shapes. "Righteousness", and resulting in communication and communication, understand the true meaning of information transmission. Characters include Chinese characters, letters, and numbers. Since the characters themselves are highly cognitive, the message is direct and clear, and it has always been loved by the general audience. This article mainly talks about the specific use of Chinese characters in logo design.

First, the foundation and premise of the Chinese character logo design

The history of writing is almost synchronized with humanity, and its birth is also one of the important symbols of the beginning of human civilization. We are immersed in the Chinese language system. Everyday work and life are inseparable from Chinese and Chinese characters. Chinese characters are an important carrier for the transmission of information, a symbol of Oriental culture, and have a symbolic role in Chinese culture. The development and evolution of the millennium not only enabled social culture to be inherited and accumulated, but also the font itself is changing, with extensive and profound cultural connotations and extraordinary artistic charm. There are six aspects in the origin of Chinese characters: pictographic, knowing, referring, transcribing, and sham borrowing. There are six aspects of the shape of a Chinese character. For example, a pictogram is an abstract representation of a certain thing. Humans are often used to intuitively reproduce the image of an objective thing. Directly expressing or stating the state of things, our ancestors carefully observed things, abstracted the most essential and most representative parts of the thing, created hieroglyphs that made it easy for people to understand what the painting represented, and the understanding was a combination. Two or more Chinese characters will be combined into meaningful words, one of which will remain unchanged, and the other will have different combinations. For example, the words “bubble” and “cannon” will be used, and the word “bag” will be used without different radicals and words. Meaning is very different, which means that in addition to the literal content of the expression, the text has its own spiritual connotation, such as giving people emotions such as association, excitement, and recall.

In terms of form, the process of word evolution is also the process of word design. From the very beginning, Chinese characters have a masculine and highly generalized identity. When acquiring knowledge and information through text in a complex and complicated society, it is by no means the first to recognize “righteousness” but first to be based on the visual aspect of the text. "Form", the shape of Chinese characters itself is also an abstract symbol. Static language is a pattern developed through evolution. Chinese characters have evolved from thousands of years, gradually from pictographic to symbolic, from simple to complex, and From tediousness to simplification and standardization, after a long period of tempering, streamlining, synthesis, and generalization, continuous development has been achieved through the development of 篆, 隶, 草, and ,, forming a unique carrier for expression and expression, tens of thousands of different meanings of Chinese characters, different The composition form itself gives people different aesthetic feelings. Although the ancient Oracle language is far from the current text, the text structure still conforms to the principle of pattern aesthetics. With Chinese characters as the mother, we can design a very distinctive trademark logo. If we combine traditional calligraphy with lines, grass, priests, gongs, gongs and other forms, using modern design techniques can make the logo have strong national characteristics. The governance of seal (engraving) is also a long history of Chinese text design art. The application of the book body, the concept of imprinting, the handling of styles, and the grasping of the knife method are all very varied. It has created rich language and various techniques for the design of signage.

Chinese characters are based on graphics and hieroglyphs, and they have evolved into a three-in-one system of sound, shape, and meaning. It has the advantages of generalization, refinement, and aesthetics in terms of graphics and ideographic, and has become a very effective design element. This is consistent with the logo's winning shape and intension. All of these provide good conditions and ways for Chinese characters to design logos and create national symbols. They are inexhaustible treasures for designers.

Second, the Chinese character logo design methods and ways

Chinese characters trademarks and logos generally use strict and standard art characters (decorative characters). Many of them use traditional seals and calligraphy.

1, decorative word sign

Decorative characters are based on the basic shape of Chinese characters (such as black body, Song type) based on decoration, change processing. It is characterized by a certain degree of freedom from the constraints of the fonts and strokes of the printed fonts, and the use of the characteristics of the Chinese character “picomorphism” and “interview” to transform the structure of the glyph into a graphic image, or add other images to point out the theme. Often with rich imagination, the use of exaggeration, addition and subtraction of strokes, variants of decoration and other techniques to reconstruct the glyphs, and reflect the physical beauty through the pointillism and the glyph structure of the text itself, reflecting the use of pen beauty, structural beauty, and artistic beauty, That is "freehand in shape". Decorative fonts in the visual recognition system, has the advantages of beauty, ease of reading and recognition, a wide range of applications; decorative strokes and their strokes also have a strong emotional color. Such as: thin lines constitute the font, easy to remind people of perfume, cosmetics and other products, garden thick and smooth fonts, often used to represent food, beverages, cleaning supplies, etc.; and thick and thick fonts and strokes are often used in performance The strength of the enterprise is strong; while angular fonts, it is easy to show corporate personality and so on.

After a well-designed font, in addition to the appearance of the shape is different from the ordinary printing fonts, more importantly, it is designed according to the personality of the company or the brand, the shape of the stroke, the thickness, the connection between the characters, the uniform shape, etc. A meticulous and meticulous plan is more beautiful and more characteristic than ordinary fonts. In the process of implementing the corporate image strategy, many companies and brand names tend to be identical, and the unified logo design of company names and logos has become a new trend. Uniform enterprise names and logos, although only one design element, have two functions, to achieve the visual and auditory effect of the simultaneous transmission of information.

Mr. Wang Guolun designed the LOGO for the 1992 international auction. The logo was derived from the character image of "Cai". The word "Cai" was a standard Song-style character. The ingeniousness of the idea lies in the replacement of the strokes and the "white" above. Substituting the hammer with the characteristics of the most auction industry, a “hammer” fixed tone indicates the transaction, the auction site is visualized, the shape and meaning are highly refined and summed up, allowing people to see at a glance, and the round shape of the frame means auctioning. The authoritativeness and seriousness of the venue, font graphic is one of the important means of Chinese character logo design.

The symbol of the Beijing National Musical Instrument Factory designed by Mr. Gaozhong Yu was transformed from the traditional character “Music” combined with musical instruments such as gongs, drums and gongs. The sign uses the word to express meaning, in order to express one's mind, make people feel like being in the ocean of folk music, and fully summarizes the operating characteristics of the musical instrument factory.

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