Galloping Through Dynasties

Objective

This co-op project involved researching, creating, and producing graphics for an exhibition on the history of Chinese horse painting with the CAM Design team. All images used belong to the CAM.

Client

The Cincinnati Art Museum East Asian curator and design team.

Deliverables

A plaza banner to hang at the museum entrance and a front-drive sign.

 

Research 

The show was broken into four sections; Celestial Horses, Horse and Groom, Transformation of the Horse Image, and the Symbolic Language of Horse Painting. The overarching themes we chose to focus on were the longevity of Chinese horse painting over time, the galloping movement of the horse, And the weightlessness of a horse in motion.

Sketches

Sketches drew inspiration from the dynamic movement of the horse. I played with contrast in the type to evoke motion. The Chinese characters are prominent to show the longevity of the painting tradition over the passage of time.

Strategy

The palette was pulled from the exhibition design team that used muted fall tones to pair with the tones found in the hanging scrolls that would be featured throughout the show. I tried different combinations of scrolls and ceramic pieces in the show paired with the logo and show dates for the signs.

Final Banner Design

Using the mood board I created, another member of our design team created an alternate option for the signs that utilized a more traditional brushwork approach in the Chinese show title and had a more minimalist approach without the artwork featured.

Curatorial Process

We presented our work to the show’s curator who was very pleased with how the hierarchy kept the Chinese in prominence and still had a modern and clean feel.