Autobiography

By Min Xiao      

    I, as an advertising designer, started to be enthusiastic about the creation of art in my childhood. Then I believed the beauty of color, shape and light represented the diversity of the whole world. I thought that one pen could create a world of my own.  

    At nine I learned from the young painter Jin Gangshan and thus began to study the art of drawing. In order to improve my accomplishment, I studied the techniques of sketches, oil painting, watercolor painting and wash painting. In this process I gradually found out that I could not be a professional painter because I like creation much more than observation and recording, which characterizes pure drawing.

    I entered the school of Fine Arts at Jilin Univ. at 1993 and was one of the top students. I also acted as the teaching assistant in the courses such as advertising design. The course of advertising design was lectured by Fu Lixia, the senior member of the Association of Chinese Advertising and famous advertising designer,. Because of my solid foundation in drawing and proficient operation of computers, I was appointed to be her teaching assistant, doing such work as checking up with the homework and organizing the seminar. Through my contact with her I knew more and more about advertising design and began to be fascinated with it.

    In the summer of 1995, I was elected the vice chair of the Association of Advertising Design of Jilin University. To satisfy the increasing needs of ad. Design  in Changchun, home of Jilin University, I did some part-time designing work in several advertising companies, which helped to shift my idea from purely academic idealism to practicalism. In my thesis for the BS, I illustrated the application of software, such as Photoshop, Freehand and 3DS, in advertising design. It also contained my works based on these applications. This thesis was chosen the supplementary reading materials for the undergraduates in the study of the software of design.

    I worked a ad. designer in Jizhiju Advertising Corporation, Beijing after graduation for two years. I have designed NP and POP for many international corporations such as HP, PEPSI and Stone. The most satisfactory works is the whole set of VI design for Chongchong Pearls Group in Taiwan. In the process of accomplishing this, I read a lot of books on advertisin. I try to go beyond the work of design itself and learn something in planning, mass media and printing, the other fields of advertising, which will make me a versatile person in advertising.

    Unfortunately, the industry of advertising in China is far from mature. Many large-scale national enterprises always hire foreign advertising companies to make advertising planning and designing. This is no doubt a denial of our Chinese advertising industry. Under these circumstances, I hope to learn more advanced advertising conceptions and experience more ingenious ideas in America.  I expect to broaden my vision and further my development to realize my dream of becoming top designer.

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