Design and Translation
Juxtaposing Chinese and Western Representational Principles: New Design Methods for Information Graphics in the Field of Intercultural Communication
Ruedi Baur, Ulrike Felsing
Geneva School of Art and Design
ulrike.felsing@multilingual‐typography.com
Keywords: cultural reference system, knowledge graphics, visual translation
Abstract
This article examines knowledge graphics from the Chinese and Western cultures, which, in the course of globalization, are being increasingly loosened from their original cultural references. If it is assumed that at most pictographs, but not complex graphics, are universally understandable, “visual translations” must be developed for knowledge graphics if we are to transfer them into another cultural reference system. Using the example of a widespread graphic form-the tree diagram-the research presented here will explain specific representational principles and the cultural concepts on which they are based. Here, on the visible surface, formal correlations can indeed be observed. However, if we ask what conceptual structures the graphics are based on, we encounter two fundamentally different representational systems. The article focuses on the question of which design methods are capable of making the diverse relationships between these representational systems comprehensible.
This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
→ download the paper (PDF)
Cite this paper: Baur, R and Felsig, U. 2016). Juxtaposing Chinese and Western Representational Principles: New Design Methods for Information Graphics in the Field of Intercultural Communication. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016.
This paper will be presented at DRS2016, find it in the conference programme