Apex Lin, the dean of Taiwan's graphic designers, has been a busy man lately. He had a hand in selecting the logo for August's Beijing Olympics and in designing the mascots for next year's World Games in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. He has also created promotional materials for next summer's Deaflympics in Taipei and assisted in the design process for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, a large international fair that will focus on the theme of urban living.
A native of Pingtung in southern Taiwan, Lin developed an interest in design in his formative years thanks to the influence of his family. Lin received his first contact with the visual arts through his father, a photographer, and then later through his brother, also a graphic designer. In 1976, he entered the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and began studying graphic design. At the same time, he also began to look abroad for inspiration and found it in the person of Motoo Nakanishi, widely known as the doyen of corporate identity (CI) designers in Japan.
Assisted by his father, who was fluent in Japanese, Lin began writing to the Japanese designer and, to his surprise, received quick and informative responses. "You've got to find a role model in the field you're devoted to, someone who can show you the way to keep making progress," says Lin, referring to his mentor, who is known for creating logos for corporate giants such as Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Mazda Motor Corp. and Kirin Beer.
Lin and a small group of classmates took on a handful of freelance design jobs while pursuing their studies at NTNU. After graduation, Lin performed his obligatory service in the armed forces, but his stint in the military did not prevent him from working on his first book on CI design. Lin was discharged from the army in 1986, one year after his book was published. With much of its content inspired by Nakanishi, the book sold well in Taiwan and in mainland China, helping him begin building his reputation in the field.
His timing for the book could not have been better. "People were just starting to discuss the privatization of state-run enterprises at the time," Lin says. "The belief was that privatization would unleash a wave of fierce competition. That's why building an effective CI system was becoming a priority for enterprises then."
As more and more corporations approached him for advice on their CI designs, Lin and three partners established a commercial studio in 1989. Large Taiwanese companies like Taiwan Sugar Corp. and Chunghwa Telecom were among those that turned to his group for help in designing corporate logos. During the 1990s, the studio grew to include 16 designers. Also during that decade, he began traveling to mainland China, where large enterprises began to request the services of his design house.
Lin also began to attract attention at home and abroad after founding the Taiwan Image Poster Design Association in 1991. In 2001 the Taiwanese group joined the International Council of Graphic Design Associations, an organization founded in 1963 as the world body for professional communications design. Later in 2001, Lin was elected the council's treasurer at its world congress in Johannesburg, South Africa. One year later, the organization presented him with an award for outstanding achievement in graphic design.
After more than 10 years of operating a successful design studio and following the departure of one of its original partners to the United States, however, Lin decided it was time for a change. The studio closed its doors in 2001 and he began to shift his focus from making profits to making sure the field of graphic design progressed in Taiwan. Meanwhile, his reputation as a designer continued to grow, and another international honor came his way in 2003 when Phaidon Press, a prestigious American publisher of books on visual arts, listed him as one of the world's top 100 graphic designers.
Olympic Vision
To fully understand Lin's work and his place in the international design community, it is necessary to go back to 1989. That year Lin visited Seoul to attend an exhibition of designs related to the Summer Olympics, which had been held in the South Korean capital the year before. "Taiwan has little chance to host such big events on home soil due to international politics," he says. "So as a designer you have to travel a lot to broaden your horizons."
Drifting Taiwan (1993) (Courtesy of Apex Lin)
While the graphics for the games were striking, he was more impressed with how holding the Olympics had boosted South Korea's image around the world. Much as mainland China did in the recently concluded Summer Games, South Korea utilized the 1988 Olympics as an opportunity to show off its culture and economic development to fans at the venues and millions of television viewers. Lin realized that if he could get involved in designing graphics for Olympic-caliber events, he could boost his career and also help Taiwan promote its achievements to the world.
Since that trip to Seoul, Lin has attempted to visit as many cities that have hosted the Olympics as possible, conducting research on sports-related visual arts and picking the brains of graphic designers who were involved in the games. "He's second to none in the ethnic Chinese circle of graphic designers when it comes to the data he has accumulated on designs related to the Olympics," says Ko Hung-to, a friend of Lin's who is also a graphic designer.
Lin paid his first visit to mainland China in 1990, and has since returned often to promote CI design, participate in seminars and deliver lectures. On his trips there, he has been accompanied by several other Asian designers, including his mentor Motoo Nakanishi. "The long lines of admirers waiting to ask for his autograph at some of the venues there were pretty impressive," says Ko, who has traveled to mainland China with Lin several times.
Lin's interest in Olympics graphic design and his ties with mainland China began paying off in 1998 when Beijing applied to host the 2008 Summer Games. Fourteen designers, including Lin and Ko from Taiwan, were selected in 1999 to create a logo for Beijing as the city competed against four other finalists for the right to host the games. After mainland China clinched the nomination in 2001, organizers again turned to Lin, this time as a consultant. He soon joined an international team of 11 judges responsible for choosing the symbol for the Beijing Games. The selection of an Olympic symbol is an important task as it is representative of a city's participation in the world's biggest international sporting event. All told, the judges screened 1,984 designs for the Beijing symbol. The competition ended in 2003 with Lin and the other judges selecting a design similar to a Chinese seal and created by a team from mainland China. "I've been very lucky to be able to play a crucial part in the preparations for the games, beginning with the application stage," Lin says.
In addition to his focus on the Beijing Games, Lin also led the team that was contracted to design the mascot for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung. The World Games are the second-largest international sports competition after the Olympics and showcase non-Olympic sports. The mascot--or rather mascots, as they are a pair--for the games in Kaohsiung represent water and light and are portrayed in the shape of a drop of water with human features.
The Taipei City Government has also sought help from Lin for designs promoting the 2009 Summer Deaflympics. On the screen of his laptop, Lin points to a design for the Deaflympics that has been adopted by the competition's organizers. "The bars of varying heights are usually seen in sound level meters measuring the volume of sounds," he says. "But put together in this design, they resemble the high-rises that make up Taipei's skyline." This apparently simple design provides a good example of Lin's genius--through using the bars to depict sound visually, he is turning up Taipei's "volume" for athletes that cannot hear. Lin is pleased with the design, saying that "it can certainly grab your attention."
The mascots for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, seen on both sides of the countdown display, are the creations of a design team led by Lin. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
Designing Taiwan
Participation in the graphic design process for large international events has helped put Lin on the world stage, but he never stops thinking of Taiwan and pondering its situation. This was one of the reasons he founded the Taiwan Image Poster Design Association in 1991 with four of his NTNU classmates. "Due to its not-for-profit nature, the organization really interested designers who wanted to create, and it stimulated them to think about the symbols of Taiwan, the cultural elements of Taiwan," says Ko Hung-to, who joined the group in 1993. Later that year, the association went to mainland China for an exhibition featuring artists from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. After the exhibition, the influence of the group inspired cities in mainland China to organize poster exhibitions such as "Shenzhen Image" and "Xian Image." "This is a good example of Taiwanese exerting an influence in mainland China by working together in an organized manner," Lin says.
In Taiwan, the group has organized yearly exhibitions centered on various themes. Previous subjects have included environmental protection and Taiwan's aborigines. Meanwhile, aware of the need for local artists to communicate with the outside world, the association has organized international exhibitions where local designers can interact with their foreign counterparts face to face.
For Jean Liao, the general manager of L'orangerie International Art Consultant Co., the operator of Taichung's Stock 20 art center, Lin is best known as an artist with a passion for his homeland. "He is an artist with broad horizons," she says. "He is the guiding light for the circle of Taiwanese designers. In fact, some people refer to him as an art-loving educator. But to me, he is a Taiwanese artist that knows Taiwan so well. Through him, I see the beauty of Taiwan."
Liao has long been impressed by Lin's work, in which the shape of Taiwan is a recurring image. Lin says he used to feel sad whenever he took a flight and saw white clouds floating by, because it reminded him of Taiwan's ever-changing international situation and unpredictable future. These musings formed the basis of his 1993 work Drifting Taiwan, which features white and black clouds in the shape of the island against a deep blue background. Today, many consider Drifting Taiwan one of Lin's signature works.
After his father passed away at the end of 2003, Lin came across a bougainvillea growing in a pot in his father's study. It was full of life, just as he remembers his father, he says. Inspired, he painted a black-and-white image fusing the exuberant bougainvillea with the shape of Taiwan. That painting became the first in a series of similar works in which an outline of the island is filled in with local plants and landscape features.
"With simple forms but fine brushwork, Lin's work fully demonstrates his love for Taiwan," Jean Liao says. In January 2006, Lin held a solo exhibition in Taichung of 60 works from his My Homeland series, and in September that year the show was repeated in Taipei through Liao's assistance. Liao also reproduces Lin's Taiwan-centric images on stationery, shirts and other items sold in major bookstores.
Last year Lin won Taiwan's highest honor for artists, the National Award for Arts, becoming the first graphic designer to claim that distinction. He is also the only graphic artist to date to serve as director of the Department of Fine Arts at NTNU, a position he held from 2005 to 2007. "The graphic design circle in Taiwan was finally given the opportunity to stand in the limelight," Lin says modestly of winning the national award. While he might have helped to increase recognition for designers in Taiwan, his contributions to graphic design for international events have also helped the nation take a share of the world spotlight.
Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw