Po-Hsien Lin

Design and Application of the Illustrations of Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi is a Chinese cultural treasure. Zhuangzi is of inestimable value due to its preservation of ancient mythological material, its literary and philosophical innovation, its eccentric imagery and rich creativity, and the strong narrative quality of its many allegories. It was often the subject of illustrations in classical works. Efforts to preserve the messages of Zhuangzi, to transform its abstract ideas into tangible forms as illustrations, and to excavate its treasures have proven to be a great struggle. The present study uses the notion of “Poetic techniques of shape-spirit transformation” proposed by Yeh et al. (2011) as its primary reference point. In her theory of the form and essence of traditional Chinese paintings, she first takes inventory to conduct a comparative analysis of modern illustrations derived from Zhuangzi, and then advances a further step toward creating a design model for transforming the artistry of Zhuangzi into illustrations.

Paper Catalog and Digital Catalog - Reading Behaviors of College Students in Taiwan

This study focused on undergraduates with varying reading habits and investigated their behavioral differences as well as the structural relationships between their attitude toward reading paper and digital catalogs, their digital usage behavior, and their paper and on-screen reading literacy. Fifty undergraduate students from Northern Taiwan comprised the sample population and were interviewed in depth. Comparative analysis was conducted on the behaviors between reading paper and digital catalogs. The results show that paper catalogs emphasized (a) richness of content messages, (b) viewing comfort of graphics editing, (c) convenience of storage, (d) connectivity of data search, and (e) influence of applied operations, whereas digital catalogs focused on (a) interactivity of media exchange, (b) immediacy of feedback sharing, (c) authenticity of audio–video transmission, (d) interoperability of service platform, and (e) potential of diverse internationality. Based on these qualities, the reading behaviors of undergraduate students who read using paper and digital catalogs were investigated and compared to determine the influence of paper and on-screen reading on the students. Finally, strategic recommendations for promoting digital catalogs are proposed through inductive analysis.

A Study of Applying Sakizaya Tribe’s Palamal (The Fire God Ritual) into Cultural Creative Products Design

The Palamal is a memorial ceremony during which the Sakiazya people to worship their ancestors. This study is based on searching for possibilities in applying the Sakiazya Palamal to the creative culture industry as the main research issue, emphasizing the integration of interdisciplinary fields. Besides conferring the dance gestures, ritual clothing and decorations for the Sakiazya Palamal, research for product design development will also be held in coordination with the Sakiazya performance promotion. As for the research methodology, collecting literature data and onsite interview will be used for this project; through the investigation of the Sakiazya cultural tradition and the understanding of ceremony rituals and worship utensils, this study intends to present the rich and vivid culture with a new look, the combination of traditional elements with modern creative ideas will transform our cultural essence into commercial culture products and artistic performance. The transformation process must be treated with respect, thus, we must understand the taboo and the deeper meaning of the culture to prevent conflicts due to cultural differences.

Research on Selection Differences Between Parent and Child on Toys

As the living standard is significantly improved due to economic development, more and more parents have reached the consensus on giving children happy childhood. Toys have become an important growth partner for children nowadays. Can the children be satisfied from the selective purchase behavior led by parents? Whether the parents’ selection is consistent with the children’s expectation becomes a topic for discussion. This research is one of the series of researches on the toy interest. This paper collects the preference information of parents and children on toys by the questionnaire, compares, quantitatively analyzes and learns about reasons resulted in the differences between parents and children in the toy selection. It is found in the research that: (1) there are differences between parents and children in the toy selection; (2) parents with different education backgrounds have different requirements on toys; (3) boys and girls have different selection on toys due to the genders; (4) parents will select different toys for children with different genders; (5) parents’ acuity on new and old toys is low. The research result can provide toy manufacturers with preference information of parents and children on toys and provide parents with suggestions on the toy selection.

Integration and Innovation: Learning by Exchanging Views - A Report of the Cross-Cultural Design Workshop for Stone Craving

This article reports on a cross-cultural design workshop held at Fuzhou, China, 25–30 December 2015. The workshop was intended to provide a platform that would bring together artists in stone craving, academic researchers, and managers from stone craving industries, in order to focus exclusively on the teaching of creativity in stone craving for the future. Sessions were devoted to works exhibition, cross-disciplinary courses and cross-cultural design workshops. This study focuses on the cross-cultural workshop which included the desirability of creativity throughout the curriculum, and particularly focuses on coaching, learning, and practicing. The purposes of the workshop emphasized interactive learning and addressed the interactions of practicing. Results are presented herein to establish a platform for examining the way artists communicate across culture as well as the interwoven experience of stone craving and culture in the creation process.

Western vs. Eastern: A Reflective Research on the Development of Chinese Animation

Animation in China, stretching across a century, has been through many vicissitudes. In view of the current development of Chinese animation industry, animators imitate the styles of America and Japan excessively, which contain a large number of western elements from character modeling to story building. It has showed a serious lack of confidence, and entered into an erroneous zone with a general over-reliance on imitation. The literature review of this research consists of the comparison of the animated films from different cultures and eras and discuss the related research models. This research is based on animation study model with the method of attribute evaluation, the questionnaire survey and MDS, and will make a large-scale comparative study of domestically and abroad-produced animated films, with the special focus on technical level, semantic level and effectiveness level to deeply investigate the connotation based on the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. To re-produce folk and re-shape traditional art, creators show prominent Chinese unique oriental charm in value, customs, aesthetic concepts, and so on. To raise feasible countermeasures on how to enhance core competitiveness of animated films, it is urgent to grasp the opportunity to regain confidence of Chinese animation.

A Study of Relationship Between Personality and Product Identity

There are many researches show that product have personified personality, in recently years, the cultural & creative products has emphasize the direction of personalized merchandise to cater demand from consumer and thereby satisfied the maverick consumer which have distinctive psychological needs. The purpose of this study is investigated the cognition of cultural & creative products are identical between the consumer who have different personality traits and learn more about the consumer preferences and purchase intentions. The research process of this paper is divided into four phases. First, according to the literature reviews define the correspondence between “Personality”, “Personalized Product” and “Consumer Perception” as first phase. In second phase, this paper collected the winner’s works of cultural & creative award during 2010 to 2015 as test sample to implement expert pre-questionnaire. Researcher reconstructed next phase questionnaire through comparison the “Personalized Product” awareness from expert into formal survey. During the third phase, each examinee will answer Professional DynaMetric Programs and finish “Personalized Product and Purchase Intention questionnaire”. The fourth phase will be data analysis and result. This study is going to verify the relationship between “Personality of Cultural & Creative Product” and “Consumer Perception”, and discuss the correlation of “Consumer Perception” and “Personality”. Above factor will be affected the consumer purchase intention or not. This result would be provided to product planner, designer or marketing for reference.

Human Factors Perspective of Dancing Props Design: A Case Study of “Feiyan’s Dancing on Palms”

“As light as a swallow” is considered as a standard of aesthetic interpretation in female body figure in contemporary world. What the “swallow” really represent is the famous dancer Zhao Feiyan in Han dynasty in China. According to the literature, she is good at a kind of chinese Kung Fu. She was able to dance on the palms of man. Two dancing pieces “Dancing on palms” (1996) and “Feiyan’s dancing on palms” (2010) were created by the author previously. In order to reshape a historical character being so familiar to the general public, how to profile a vivid appearance and personality was the main concern. The fulfilment of this task relied on a profound exploration of the scenario including historical background, social context, and cultural phenomenon. The costume further played an additive role in the process of choreography. According to the historical record, the Emperor Chen of Han (51-7 BC) also made a special “crystal plate”. The dancer Zhao Feiyan can dance on the crystal plate which the assistants held. To have a better performance and safety concern, several human factors about the costume including material quality, make-up method and surface area are another important issues. In order to present the images in artwork “Feiyan’s dancing on palms,” many factors should be considered in the process of choreography. For example, the material quality of “crystal plate” including its thickness, weight and surface area; the choice of dancers to fulfill the character (the type of build, ability of dance, stage manner); an appropriate music for the dance (form, rhythm, style). After considering the human factors in the design of “crystal plate”, it also solved the problems in the make-up of dancing props. The original idea and design of the author could be well presented on the stage.

Emotion and Perception: A Case Study of Aesthetic Response to Frith’s Narrative Painting “The Railway Station”

This study intends to exam Clive Bell’s theory of significant form. For Bell, a painting could not be a work of art if line and color were used to recount anecdotes, express ideas, and indicate the lifestyle of an age. In his influential book Art, Bell claimed that William Powell Frith’s famous narrative painting The Railway Station was not a work of art. This paper used Frith’s painting as the subject to explore whether viewers’ aesthetic responses to a narrative painting would be affected by their perceptive awareness of image. Statistical data showed that, contrary to Bell’s criticism, the artistic value of the work was confirmed by viewers’ responses, demonstrating that he underestimated the attractiveness of representational painting. The results of this study partly supported Bell’s argument. Comparing with artist’s achievement of realistic representation, the viewers were indeed unmoved by the effects of idea communication and emotional expression in the painting. No significant association was found between viewers’ perceptive awareness and their aesthetic judgments, suggesting that visual attraction could be more critical than cognitive information for viewers’ aesthetic responses to a work of art.

A Study of the Accessible Approach to Replace the Reservoir Silt Glaze with New Formula

The author engaged in the research work of utilizing Shihmen Reservoir silt to make ceramic glazes. It was shown to be specific and feasible. But due to the different accumulation of layers or batches, it has more instability. The author had ever been three times to collect silt in different sedimentation pond, and was confirmed its chemical composition to be have obvious differences by instrumental analysis. If you used a direct replacement, you could find significant differences in appearance when silt content above 20 %. The “seger’s formula” of ceramic glaze was used as the theoretical basis for the composition, and then calculated by Excel’s Solver tool. It was always made the similar effect with original if you gave proper constraints and the substitution principle.