Student wins award for typography project
10 July 2024
Communication Design MA student King Wai has won an ISTD International Typographic Award for his project entitled Binaural.
The ISTD awards are a professional body for typographers, designers, and educators, celebrating the best work in the industry.
After lengthy research and development phases, the result was a book that helps English speakers navigate the nuances and complexity of the Cantonese language. The book was bound with manipulated images of Queen Victoria and the current Chief Executive of Hong Kong, symbolising the colonisation of Hong Kong as both a political and historical matter.
Upon coming to Falmouth to study, King realised his trilingual upbringing in Hong Kong was unique. He was therefore able to use his experiences and his passion for language and culture as inspiration for the project.
Another of King’s projects has also been celebrated recently in the 2024 AD&D awards.
He told us: “I have never really explored how language, typography, and culture interact deeply; it is really interesting to learn new knowledge in the typographic area,” says King. “This year is my first ‘official’ year doing design, and this project kicked off something new and exciting in my career.
“Some information about Hong Kong’s typographic history is new to me, while most of it came from my knowledge of my culture and studies growing up. I’ve shown some of my friends back in Hong Kong, and they think it is an incredible way to represent our mother tongue.”
On what’s next for King, he added: “I am currently working on my Final Major Project, which revolves around the idea of cultural hybridity, though I'm not sure whether the outcome of the project will be a sequel to this book. I really enjoyed the process from the research phase to the final delivery of the project. Since I won both awards from ISTD and D&AD, this has given me a huge ego boost and confidence to continue my design career further.”
External links
King Wai's website.
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