According to Zhao, it is hard to say whether the Chinese cartoon industry is already a mature market or not. The pursuit of maximum profits has led to a dulling of creativity and an actual shrinkage in readership. There are no doubt plenty of cartoonists and committed readers in China, but the domestic industry lacks the confidence and patience to follow the creative process through to hit on original products with mass-market appeal.
“There is a great leap from original thinking to creating a successful industry. There are problems, for example, in assessing the accounting value of intangible assets and hence in securing financing,” says Li Wuwei, president of the Shanghai Creative Industries Association. “We should focus our efforts on creating an efficient industrial chain through improving our business models, establishing a credit guarantee system and strengthening inter-industry cooperation.”
Where There's a Will There's a Way
China is a historically innovative place. China’s “four great inventions,” namely gunpowder, the compass, printing and papermaking, have exerted a great influence on domestic and world culture. Certainly, nowadays more products are being acknowledged as “created in China” as aside from simply “made in China.”
“Of the nearly 100 designers I know, not one has abandoned the profession in recent years. And they are busier than ever,” notes Yang Yun.
On finishing his post-graduate studies, Bai set to work on the themes that pervade his work: memory and nostalgia. From that time he began collecting various kinds of filmstrip boxes from film studios, and continues to use these in his work.
“I’m not a businessman and I don’t have a competitive production line or marketing channel. Originality is my trump card, and I have to keep churning out new ideas before businessmen start copying and selling my designs,” confesses Bai. He says that setting up his own brand and continuing to think up new designs is the most effective way to combat piracy.
Aside from product design, Bai works at paving the way for the star designers of tomorrow. “Few designers have their own products. I’d like to think that my Tyvek wallets encourage upcoming designers to think outside the box and develop their own hit ideas.” He also notes, “When I cooperate with up-and-coming designers to improve my own products, I usually don’t have the resources to pay them so I end up giving them 20 or so of my wallets. Both sides are usually happy with this arrangement.”
Likewise, Zhao is extremely busy and attends multiple promotional activities every day. He believes his artistic style, which combines fashion with provocative use of color, is very suitable for commercialization. This belief is acknowledged in his partnerships with Bvlgari, Nike, Lotto Sport and Converse.
In 2009, Zhao Yu also received a cartoon and animation grant from the Ministry of Culture. This shows the government’s commitment to promoting cultural and assisting the development of domestic creative industries.
Zhao is a free spirit and would rather run a design studio than an art gallery or work in a company: “Although dealing with businessmen can be frustrating, I do make a lot of friends running my own studio. Of course working for a company or an art gallery isn’t as stressful as owning your own business, but I don’t think artistic originality comes out of mass production, with its lack of emotion. I’d rather have space for my own creations.”
By staff reporter Li Yuan
Source: Chinatoday
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