Local cultural visual practice in the context of globalization

The national market development brought about by the reform and opening up in the 1980s and the economic reform in the 1990s led to the entry of a large number of foreign brands into the Chinese market. The subsequent rapid economic development also brought about an unprecedented visual prosperity, from flat product packaging to print advertising, from images to film and television. After entering 2000, with China's accession to the WTO as the time node, the journey of Chinese companies into the international market has been moving forward with great momentum.

Born in the 1990s and 2000s, the new generation of people born in the rapid economic development are surrounded by a rich material world. From education, transportation, culture, consumption, the invented "modern" concepts also affect Chinese local traditional culture everywhere. Chinese local consumer culture is also experiencing a huge transformation from the traditional planned model to the free model. Local culture and Western culture are developing in constant communication and conflict.

Today, Chinese local enterprises are experiencing a new round of enterprise transformation from low-end manufacturing to innovation-driven. In my past work, I realized that in the process of internationalization of local brands, the visual "Western standards as the only reference standard (excessive reference to visual language)" is a manifestation of the lack of "self-awareness" in the development process of local enterprises. Visual culture plays an important role in modern consumer culture. In the past, China's manufacturing industry was neglected for a long time due to the low-price market strategy. The excessive consumption of "national tide culture" and "brand confidence" is the cultural compensation for this. However, this strategy does not work completely. In the Western context, over-emphasizing "the nationality of Chinese enterprises" and "traditional culture" is still a kind of "Western-centrism". The two extremes are "traditional culture of ethnic minorities as Chinese culture" and "stereotyped image of Chinese people (such as squinting eyes)".

It is an established fact that local enterprises face the "cross-culture" and "cultural differences" problems dominated by a long-term single Western culture when entering overseas markets. The "national culture" behind Chinese enterprises is precisely because of its "bigness" and inclusiveness. 

All cultures that occur locally are Chinese culture. How to identify cultural differences and tell the differences without prejudice is the problem that Chinese local brands need to consider in the process of globalization.

In my opinion, the domestic criticisms of "Chinese designers only know how to use English", "Chinese brands overuse foreign models", "designers use Western design language", "the gap between Chinese tradition and creation culture is a failure in the design field" should be changed to "Why do designers from China to other countries in the world start to use English as the main language?" "Are we using foreign models to respect local culture or to create an international image? What represents an international image?" "Design is a means of serving the public. Instead of considering whether it has local attributes, it is better to consider its universal attributes." "The concept of design appears in modern industry because of its efficiency. Over-emphasizing traditional culture and Chinese creation in design deviates from its original intention - creation is a spirit of the times." It is an established fact that local companies face the "cross-culture" and "cultural differences" problems under the long-term dominance of a single Western culture when entering overseas markets. 

The "national culture" behind Chinese companies is precisely because of its "bigness" and tolerance. All cultures that occur locally are Chinese culture. How to identify cultural differences and tell the differences without prejudice is the problem that Chinese local brands need to consider in the process of globalization. To this end, this article ends the portfolio with the visual practices during graduate school, including "Internationalism from functionalism to formalism", "Narrative design combining local sugar-coated haws with Latin letters", "Aesthetic reproduction practice in daily consumer objects (GDC/HIII ILLUSTRATION/CID 9)", "Traditional local colors and abstract visual language", and "Social co-creation" as responses to the above questions.