Xiaoying Su is an experimental graphic designer based in London and Shanghai. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Communication: Branding Identity & Public Space from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art (SIVA). His creative practice includes branding design, type design, concept art, and photography, among other visual fields.
Xiaoying Su | 苏孝潆
After a year of online learning, I became fascinated by the subtle connection between individuals and the spaces they inhabit. I hope to prompt my audiences to contemplate the associative and narrative connections between their emotions, consciousness and their relationships to place through the use of contemporary technologies.
My research is based on exploring specific sites, most notably the Thames. As the mother river of London, the Thames is closely related to civilisation and the development of the city. Visiting, walking and recording the site provides material from which new research and opportunities can emerge.
My current work incorporates photography, typography, publication design, physical computing and digital interaction.
Step 1. Origin
Step 2. Development
Step 3. Submergence
‘Shape of the River’ is an experimental title font inspired by the relationship between the hydrological environment and urban texture of the Thames estuary. The font discusses how humans balance the complex and contradictory relationship between community and the natural environment in light of a changing climate.
Medium:
DigitalSize:
Variable
The book ‘Network and Data Sunk in The River’ shows the application of the typeface in different settings along with the designer’s personal narrative images of the river-site. It explores how nature and the city have forged a new relationship under the changing climate.
Medium:
Paper, AcrylicSize:
148 × 106mm
Due to climate change the Thames River will rise 1.15 metres in the next 100 years. This installation illustrates this transformation and loss through manipulation and distortion. As the water levels rise, a sensor triggers the distortion of the letterforms. I’m interested in exploring the contradictory relationship between the urban, human impact and hydrological environment of the future.
Medium:
Acrylic, Water Sensor, Digital Screen, Water Pump, Touch DesignerSize:
300 × 200 × 120mmSteam from the bathtub
By the ‘Thames’
By the Thames
I created a simulation of the Thames in the bathroom using projection and stones taken from the site. I projected photographs of tides and water bodies onto a screen positioned flat in the bathtub, which served as the virtual riverbed. Stones were positioned on the baths edge as if it were on the banks of the Thames, serving as a conduit for cross-temporal communication. By utilising the function of digital media, I attempted to redefine the barrier between the public space of the Thames and private space of the bathroom, and to explore opportunities for an overlapping and transportive space for the public to encounter.