THE INCORPORATION OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE FOLK-ART IN MODERN GRAPHIC DESIGN: CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES

Abstract

The traditional Chinese folk art also has great visual significance; it still has a great influence on the modern graphic design in terms of symbolism, color system and composition. However much of the existing literature is quite aestheticistic, rather than about the uses of folk-art as a strategic instrument in the practice of visual communication today. The paper discusses the relationship between traditional Chinese folk-art characteristics and modern graphic design, and tries to evaluate their ability to express cultural identity and communicate the power. The qualitative research methodology based on literature review and case-study analysis is used to explore the symbolic motifs used in poster design, the use of traditional color symbolism in the poster design and the stylistic composition techniques in the poster design and branding purposes such as the Chinese New Year visual communication and culturally adapted advertising campaign using Coca-Cola. The results show that application of traditional folk-art elements would affect positively the audience engagement, cultural identification and the development of the unique visual communication strategy in the context of modern design. The paper also demonstrates that reprocessing of traditional artistic resources in digital graphic design has been part of the equilibrium between cultural perpetuation and imaginative innovation in the global visual communication environments. This study offers a theoretical framework to comprehend the way in which traditional visual language may be used to help in culturally responsive and sustainable graphic design practice by filling the gaps in the systematic analysis of folk-art components as communicative strategies in past studies.