Taiwan graphic artist Xiao Qing-yang has won the coveted red dot design award in Germany for his cover design of musician CinCin Lee’s latest CD “Story Island.”
The distinguished award is considered by many to be the “Oscar of the designing industry.”
“Story Island” does not feature a single photo or drawing, and instead is more like a book with 12 pages of paper-cut patterns depicting famous images of Taiwan.
Xiao used special laser paper-cut technology to piece together his portrayal of the island’s major events and landmarks, ranging from scenes of Sun Moon Lake and Orchid Island to pictures of the Presidential Office.
Among the more notable images are several from disaster areas that were devastated by Typhoon Morakot when it swept across southern Taiwan in August of last year.
One page shows a soldier wading across water and carrying an old man on his back to safety and a woman holding her child off to the side, with a digitally inserted background image of the collapsed Jinshuai Hotel in Taitung County.
The famous image of the soldier helping Typhoon Morakot victims escape from the flooding caused by the storm had earlier been shown on CNN and other news networks around the world.
Upon learning he had received the award, Xiao said, “I had originally thought that only the people of Taiwan could understand the feelings that the design conveys. I had no idea that people in other countries could also feel it so strongly.”
The CD cover design also won a media award in mainland China last year and was nominated for Best Album/Design Packaging at the recent Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan.
As a winner of the red dot design award, “Story Island” will be included in the museum’s design almanac and be put on permanent display, thereby forever memorializing the tragic event in Taiwan’s history.
Xiao’s work will also represent Taiwan at the upcoming Seoul Design Fair 2010 and in a design expo in Belgium slated to be held later this year.
The international edition of “Story Island” has already gone on sale in the United States. For this version, Xiao decided to include images of various recent natural disasters from around the world, including the devastating earthquakes in Qinghai, mainland China and in Sumatra, Indonesia. (SB)
(This article originally appeared in the United Daily News Aug. 7.)