blog of Joe cz Liao

I settled upon the theme for my personal promotion design while I was on a plane ride about a month ago. From that point on, the business cards were printed and stamps were made in two days, the blog is now redesigned (and migrated), and I’m working full speed on my portfolio. Other stationaries to come.

First thing first,

_{The emboss on each card is manually done to emphasize the organic, personal and tailored features of my designs. Imperfect as they might be, each one is unique :-)}

I am certainly not original in the use of the three basic shapes as graphical elements – they are used because they are good. At which point did human start using these shapes in works of design I do not konw (likely as soon as they started making shapes), however, in this case I know that I was influenced by 1.) the game we all played when we were babies in which we must fit the shapes into the right holes; 2.) Japanese’s yearning for simplicity, and 3.) the Elementism (a term I learned in Hung Lam’s Elementism 2, about the work of Shinnoske Sugisaki) shared by Chinese and Japanese architecture. Since I started my work (might have caused the heightened registration) I kept stumbling upon logos and graphics that use these shapes dominantly (The Logo of Suntory Museum, for example). Nonetheless, I truly think that they pithily express the aspects of work that I work/(wish to work) on, as well as the essence of my character.

The small texts under the three shapes are:

• Square → Digital
• Triangle → Architectural
• Circle → Physical

Rather self-explanatory, right?

[2009.11.28 update:took+added a few more pictures]