"Alan Chan is to the design world what Jackie Chan is to action
movies," says a Hong Kong magazine. And they certainly have a
point.
The Hong Kong-based designer has just had his first solo
exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum. It was also probably the
first exhibition for a designer who is known exclusively for his
"commercial projects" at the museum.
"He is like the godfather of designing in Hong Kong," says Zhang
Qing, curator of the exhibition, and vice-director of the museum.
Chan was invited to the Shanghai Biennale last year, and Zhang had
also consulted Chan frequently about the Biennale logo design.
Chan is known as the man who redesigned the Chinese logo of Coca
Cola.
Alan Chan at his solo exhibition at the
Shanghai Art Museum.
The old design, written in plain Chinese characters, was used
for more than 20 years in China. But Chan added some ribbon-like
strokes to the writing, making the logo look as fresh and coherent
as its English counterpart.
He is also the logo designer for Hong Kong's new airport. His
projects can be found in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Chan has
been invited to become a consultant for the Beijing Olympic Games
next year and the Shanghai Expo in 2010. The designer was also the
"image ambassador" for a bottled tea company.
Chan's fame is largely built upon his commercial logo designs,
using very simple lines and images to define a brand's orientation.
But he has explained again and again that he does not only do
logos: "I do branding, incorporating the commercial image, as well
as shop decoration and company profiles."
One of Alan Chan's early works of
installation art on show at the Shanghai Art Museum.
One such example is Fairwood, a Hong Kong-based food and
entertainment company. Two years after he modernized their branding
design, the company's shares price increased eightfold.
In the past few years, when the Chinese mainland started to
realize the value of brand designs, Chan became involved in many
projects across the country. An important project in the renovation
of Shanghai's Bund area, "Three on the Bund", had all its interior
design undertaken by Chan.
"I meet with more difficulties now than in all my past 20 years
working in Hong Kong," says Chan about his clients in the mainland.
"I was cheated, forced to give up projects, and rejected too, but I
always keep on accepting new project plans."
Chan, one of the top-flight commercial designers in China,
admitted that he only had 10 months training on design at a night
school. "It was a two-year program," Chan says. "I decided to quit
after 10 months because I felt the teachers had nothing new to
teach me anymore."
Chan believes designing is all about equations. "You design a
formula according to the intrinsic quality of the product," he
says.
Chan once took the assignment of designing a new look for the
cigarette brand "Chunghwa".
"It's a long established brand, with a high marketing
orientation," he says.
So he designed a sub-brand series "Chunghwa 5000", creating a
new packing box, and thus updated the cigarette brand's image into
the 21st century.
When doing projects on the Chinese mainland, Chan also learns
the art to communicate with government officials and those involved
in the projects.
Chan is one of the top commercial designers in China.?
"You need to communicate with them skillfully," he told a
complaining artist in Shanghai. "You have to treat them as friends.
We can't make them lose face. They will be moved in the end.
"I worked for four different advertising companies in Hong Kong
in the 1970s," explains Chan, "and all of them were foreign
companies with Western bosses. We Chinese followed their operation.
But now we are catching up, showing our local ways and ideas."
Working and making friends with foreigners added to his
understanding of Chinese culture. "We may neglect some of our own
culture, but foreigners feel it is very fresh and impressive. From
them I learned to cherish our culture, and see it from a different
point of view."
Zhang, the curator, says Chan was like a child in front of new
things, full of curiosity and fresh feelings. Critics say his
designs often have a sense of Zen.
Chan has won more than 400 prizes in design. His suggestion for the
younger generation dreaming of a career in this field is not to be
too influenced by material objects or money.
"I've enjoyed my work, and have never felt tired in the past 30
years, though I work for 10 hours a day, and fly almost every week.
It's always easier when you start, but it takes lots of persistence
to carry it through."
Chan was born in a working class family. His father had a fruit
store in the 1950s. "He used to make furniture from fruit boxes,
doing the designs and handicraft himself. I think I learned my
skills from him," Chan says.
As a child, he used to make his own toys. During festival
seasons, he would be very eager to decorate the house.
He was "fussy" about his own dressing, buying clothes and going
to tailors to have them made to his own request. He would
especially buy a small piece of cloth to make his own ties in order
to match his shirts.
In the 1980s when he designed graphics and images for Hong
Kong's pop stars, he used to lend his own clothes to his singing
clients. "Leslie Cheung had an album cover photograph wearing my
jacket," he recalls about the deceased pop idol. "Later we became
friends. I still have a pair of shoes with me, a gift from
him."
(China Daily August 3, 2007)
