This book studies the development of modern and contemporary design art in China since 1978. Starting with the design enlightenment, and closely following the evolution of the visual and material forms in three levels of “individual”, “group”, and “country” since the reform and opening up, the book comprehensively and meticulously describes and analyzes the social particularity of the changes of Chinese design art in this period and makes corresponding evaluations on its “success” and “failure”. The author believes that Chinese modern design thinking has arisen from the problems displayed in the phenomena and events of Chinese modern design. Therefore, with nine chapters organized in chronological order and unfolded layer by layer by focusing on the relevant topics of “design thinking”, the book has sorted out the academic contentions, important events, phenomena, details of Chinese design in this period by placing design in the background of great history, and has searched, discovered, and summarized the key problems of Chinese design in each stage, and analyzed the causes and consequences, and has specially studied on the gains and losses of important phenomena and theoretical problems and correspondingly made theoretical comments. Therefore, it is a book comprehensively presenting the overall look of the development of Chinese modern design “thinking” history.
This book has a grand structure and detailed content. The author and her research objects always coexist in the same context, and the writing style is fresh, the argument is reasonable, and the pictures and texts complement each other, so the book has both academic depth and readability.
Xiao’ou Cao is Chinese Scholar of art history. She was born in Shanghai in 1965. She obtained her bachelor degree from the Department of Fine Art History Studies, China’s Central Academy of Craft Art in 1987, and master degree from the Department of Photography, School of Art and Design, University of Wolverhampton, UK, in 2006. She has worked for the magazine of Fine Art, Art Section of Guangming Daily, the Journal of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, etc. She is currently a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Fine Art Institute of Chinese National Academy of Arts. Her main research interests are Chinese contemporary design. She has authored several publications, including "Chinese Modern Design Thinking," "Foreign Postmodern Design," "Heavenly Crafts Illustrated," "New Figurative Art," and "Britain's History in Pictures."
