Website: Pizza Hut China, Menu 2010

Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise. I love it in China because there it has a variety of delicious dishes ranging from appetizer, pizza, dessert to drink, and comfortable dining environment. Unlike in Australia, it is really just a "hut". :-(

In China, it constantly has promotions, and every season/year, it offers a new menu. Here it is for 2010:

If you click on the title, you will be directed to this particular subpage made for this year's new menu on the website of Pizza Hut China. The interface is generally divided into 3 sections [Space]. In the middle is the title, instruction and submenu [Text]. Diverse color squares are labels for diverse dishes [Color], such as salad, soup, meal, etc. On either side is vivid pictures of food and drink, placed in rounded rectangles of different sizes [Shape&Contrast]. Each picture has a little spacing with contiguous ones [Space&Line]. And on both sides, pictures form a bigger neat square [Balance&Unity].

What is eye-catching is absolutely the pictures of food [Emphasis], yummy! Speak of this, I am having a watering mouth now, hahaha! Well, back to the topic, my greediness exactly proves how successful this website is! :-P

* Image is captured from referred website.

Building: Burj Al Arab

Burj Al Arab is the only 7 star hotel in the world, located in Dubai, an emirate of UAE. As an Arab nation which shocks the world by its wealth, Burj Al Arab (Burj) is built with 2 themes throughout its design - Arab and luxury.

Exterior: Isn't it a fantastic creation? Burj is built on an artificial island, 280m away from the seashore [Space]. Looking from afar, this giant boat is setting high the sail, ready to launch out [Shape&Movement], as sailboat is one of the symbols for Arab nations. From the photos we can see clearly its structure, the straight line in the back is the mast, and 2 arcs on either side are the edges of the sail [Line]. Between the arcs are the area of the sail, puffing but held by the rigging, thus rippling [Texture].

Interior: Burj has 56 floors, most of which are functioned as guest rooms, thus having the same decoration of corridors. It has a very high cortile through the entire building. Therefore, to view from the top, every floor composes the iterative pattern, like kaleidoscope [Space, Repetition&Unity]. Gold is everywhere [Color], implying the extreme wealth of the owner of the land.

Suites: Likewise, gold, as well as deep colors (deep red&deep blue mostly) are spread in all suites [Color&Unity]. Every suite is 2-storey high, and has a area from 170m2 to 780m2 [Space].

Facility: From outside, a round plate object is noticed [Emphasis]. It was initially served as the landing field for guests who arrived by helicopter (there are 3 ways to get to Burj, road, sea and air), now used as tennis court.

If one has to say something negative about Burj Al Arab, that is its too luxury, especially the flooding gold color gives a high visual pressure, personally I don't like its inner style. But as a design work, it is perfect art, a successful piece of work!

* All images are from internet.

Art work: Doha Asian Games 2006

Doha Asian Games was held in Qatar, the Arabian country, in 2006. As a volunteer, I gained my first experience of international teamwork, meanwhile generally explored the exotic Arabic culture.

Logo&Mascot: Qatar is a peninsula. It is located in the torried Middle East, has a very long coast line and a large area of desert. Therefore,  the logo design of Doha Asian Games (above left) has 3 major elements: red sun, blue ocean and golden desert [Color,Shape&Line]. And as a whole, it looks like a running athlete [Unity&Movement]. The mascot of Doha Asian Games is Arabian Oryx (above right), a species that inhabits Arabian Peninsula. The oryx wears sports vest and trunks which have the same design of the logo[Unity].

Torch Tower&Stadiums: Integrally, the inspiration of the torch tower (above left) comes from oryx's horns [Unity&Shape], decorated by neon lights, so even at night, the tower still vividly shines [Emphasis&Movement]. Doha Asian Games have 2 main stadiums, ourdoor and indoor respectively. Khalifa Stadium (above right top) is where the opening and closing ceremonies were held. There is a metal arch spanning the race field [Space&Line], equiped with lighting and cameras, which can glide along the track[Movement]. This frame enables the overview of the stadium. The indoor stadium (above right bottom) is designed like 2 pearl shells placed towards each other  [Shape, Balance&Unity], symbolising the old days of Qatar when people lived on pearl-fishery.

Ceremonies: When the torch was lit on the opening ceremony (above left), the flame inside the circle was glaring, feeling like the Sun [Shape&Color]! While on the closing ceremony, the role of legendary Scheherazade, stood on the totem for Arab - the Moon (above right) [Shape&Color], retelling the fascinating stories of Arabian Nights...

Doha Asian Games was a great opportunity for Qatar to welcome people to its mysterious, yet modernised Arab world! Along with all events and activities, it was not only a successful games, but also a magnificent cultural feast!

* All images are from internet.

Film: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is a fairy tale. Like in all magic movies, imaginery properties and characters are created to construct a dreamlike scene.

Integration:When Alice drinks the potion and enters wonderland as a mini person, following her we see a garden of all colors and mushroom 3 times taller than human [Space]. Real world is eliminated, we've also entered the fairy tale with her. In wonderland, all the kind creatures are designed to have normal body types. White Rabbit, Blue Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat... although personified, are almost as big as what they are in reality [Proportion]. In contrast, all the villians' appearances [Shape] are exaggerated even grotesque.

To talk about the design of main characters, I have to skip the leading actress Alice. It is just a girl, with blond hair and normal dresses in her century. From the angle of design, this character has no personality.

Red Queen v.s White Queen: As I mentioned in last paragraph, just by looking we can judge who is kind and who is the villian. Red Queen (above left) has an absurb big head [Shape&Proportion], and bright red color represents aggression and brutality [Color]. Compared, White Queen (above middle) is a angelic figure, and vanilla white represents peace and goodness [Color].

Mad Hatter: Mad Hatter (above right) is a very interesting character. Although he looks and dresses like a clown, but notice: a clown is never a bad guy, but someone to make kids happy. And I read some behind-the-scenes, that Mat Hatter's eyes are enlarged 10%-15% than the real actor's [Shape&Proportion], which makes him more funny and adroble. After all, this is a children's story.

* All images are from internet.

Magazine: Vision

Vision is one of the leading art magazines in China, which showcases the international visual art in the fields of design, fashion, culture, etc. It particularly has a column Vision Design, focusing on the top or emerging creative teams and designers, and discovering the concepts and process of their fabulous works.

Cover: To attract readers at first sight, Vision uses a whole sheet of picture as cover. Normally solid-color background, with female model feature in heavy makeup [Emphasis], becomes its characteristic. Title is placed on the top in large bold letters, using a contrast color to the background [Black&White Contrast, Red&White Contrast], or a similar tone in one color scheme [Light Blue&Dark Blue Tone], highly harmonious. Very few nevigation text is applied, that ensures the neatness of the cover image.

Nevertheless, while focusing on the picture, little nevigation weakens readers' attention on the content - the real spirit of a magazine (after all it is not a photo collection), especially to those who judge a book by its cover.

Inner page: The style of inner pages is also image-dominant as the cover. A large neat picture occupies the majority space of one page. Concise content floats on the side. Colored picture [Shape] and plain text consist a very comfortably visual layout [Balance].

* All images are from internet.