KAIJIE CHEN
PROJECTS
Haptics
#PrintingTechnology
Haptics is a series of experimental substrates that engage our innate desire to experience the world through our senses. In a world where architectural environments are often dominated by visual experiences, this collection explores the aesthetics of touch. By incorporating 3-dimensionality into environmental graphic design, the collection stimulates a sense of touch in the minds of the audience. Haptics has received the Adobe Design Achievement Award and the Indigo Design Award.
The interplay of abstract colors and patterns helps create an ever-changing surface that responds to each individual’s unique perceptions as they move through a space. Chen utilized a mixture of flexible and non-flexible ink in conjunction with custom-engineered heat and airflow control to create these one-of-a-kind substrates. They were printed using UV and solvent printing techniques on recycled PETG and Styrene panels.
Melting Metal On Holographic Acrylic
Glitchy Art On Holographic Acrylic
Camouflage Text On Iridescent Film
Exploding Brain On Sheer Fabric
Nature Force
#MaterialScience
Nature Force is a collection of work that stems from Chen’s deep interest in experimental art-making. The poetics of visual design and material science shape the structures found within this body of work. Chen uses forces of magnetism and gravity for their natural unpredictability to capture an essence of universal energies. Nature Force has received The Good Design Award and has been published in Designboom and Interior Design magazine.
Each artwork is unique and created spontaneously. The process is a conversation with nature. Particles of iron are layered in a painterly fashion - suspended upon the invisible field of magnetic energy. This intuitive conversation is then recorded and captured forever within a veil of cast resin. The interplay of light and shadow continues to resonate and give life to the patterns captured within Nature Force.
Video Showing Interaction With Infinite Cube
Infinite Cube Detail
Gif Showing Interactive Design Concept For A Writing Board
Floral Motifs Created Using Electrical Components
During the Covid 19 pandemic, everyday the context of a foreign worker's, even students' legal status kept being threatened. Some lost job and were forced to stay here illegally because of repeated canceled flights, and some were stranded outside of US due to travel ban, embassies shutting down and visa suspensions. Even though the pandemic surfaced a lot of tension, the problematic restrictions for nonimmigrants were already embedded within the legal structures.
Chen's story is about the challenges, restrictions, and complexities faced by people living under nonimmigrant visas in the United States. As someone with a nonimmigrant visa, the stories portrayed are intimate and personal. She hopes that after watching her documentary, people will be surprised to find out about the hidden layers of discrimination and oppression embedded within the legal infrastructure and how it influences our lives and choices.
High Heat Used To Melt Glass Beads And To Create Experimental Effects
Images Of Mushroom Printed Through Heat Transfer Technique
Soy Sauce Egg As Luscious Graphics
Almonds Pattern As A Mix Between Batik and Polka Dots On TPU
Unusual Beauty
#VisualArt
Unusual Beauty is a collection of prints that draws inspiration from the unusual and wild beauty of neurodivergent psychology. It attempts to offer an alternate perspective that is more playful and affirming than the general stigma around mental disorders. The concept was developed in two directions: the illusory perspective presented in the designs: Camouflage Text, Melting Metal, and Glitchy Art Effect; and a playful look at brain and nerves in designs such as Exploding Brain and Twist Mind.
The designs are created using the motion graphic software Cinema 4D. This project also explores alternative surface imaging techniques by printing on unorthodox substrates such as holographic film. Unusual Beauty has won international awards such as the A’ Design Award, The International Design Awards (IDA), SGIA award and has been exhibited worldwide in Italy, China, Hungary, India, and the USA. It was also developed as upholstery for the Steelcase award-winning SILQ chair and shown in NeoCon.
Haptics Exhibit
Eco-solvent Printing
Vacuum-formed Substrate Inspired By Topographic Imagery
Utilizing Non-flexible Inks To Create A Unique Ripple Effect
Office Playground
#ProductDesign
Over the last few years there has been a significant shift in the ways we work. Office Playground takes our ever increasing desire for fulfilling work environments and develops a series of playful, interactive, and engaging products for use in modern workspaces. Infinity cube is designed as a stress-relieving product and has won The International Design Awards (IDA). In small scales it can be used as a toy while in larger scales it can work as interactive furniture that adapts to the needs of its environment. UV printed moire patterns each cube with interesting visual effects as they are interacted with.
Office green is a space divider that fills an office environment with engaging visual highlights of mood enhancing greens. Plants in the workplace attract, retain and enhance peoples attention in workspaces for a healthy and nurturing way of increasing productivity. Research shows that going green decreases stress in the office while enhancing productivity by 12%. Using products like Infinity Cube, Office Green, and multiple other workspace enhancements that blur the boundaries between work and play, Office Playground fosters increased creativity and productivity in our workspaces.
Stranded
#Documentary Film
People enjoy sharing food photos on social media, maybe a glass of wine, a simple brunch, a dessert, or a feast. To many people, food is a cultural representation of their lifestyle. As a daily necessity, how people dress is an extension of their self-expression and identity. Chen sees a deep connection between food and apparel. She was inspired one day while cooking and realized that the dish she was cooking could serve as a stunning and innovative pattern for textiles. All of the patterns in Feast are designed with beautiful and abstract food elements.
Like cooking, the fabrics in Feast were transformed through heat. Each technique involved precise control through various timing and temperature like a recipe for a dish. Mixing ingredients and melting into the fabrics at high temperatures, tying and boiling, transferring textures through heat, and bonding fabrics of different kinds were some of the processes used in the development of these unique fabrics in Feast. This collection of designs has received the award of merit from SGIA and exhibited at Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Korea.
The triple screen is used to convey both multitude of information simultaneously when showing data and b-roll footage
Quotes as supplementary info to portrait individual experiences
Elicit sympathy through voice over, personal archival footage and intimate interviews
Verite interviews are presented from people's homes through zoom and in person recordings
Feast
#FashionTextiles
Modular
#Typeface
Modular is a typeface design that is mathematical in its structure and playful in its delivery. A study in minimalism, Modular shows us the beautiful complexity of simple shapes. Akin to the elementary building blocks of chemistry that make life possible, Modular documents a playful typeface created from 2 simple units of information. Each shape is highly considered for its relationship and connectivity to the other.
Together the two shapes create the relational structures within which meaning and representation can be generated. Modular replicates itself through twists and turns to construct this unique typeface. The constellation of pointed edges and their negative spaces playfully hint at a mythology of self-organizing letters as digital lifeforms with intelligent properties.
Prototype For Initial Nature Force Panel
Metallic Sheen Revealed Through The Polished Surface
Video Showing Interaction With Light And Environment
Nature Force Panel Exhibited At New Collectors Gallery
Modular Core Units
Combinations Of Modular Units Used To Create Forms
Combination Of Forms Used To Create Complex Patterns
Modular Typeface Used In A Poster Design
Anatomy
#MotionGraphics
A simple curiosity to explore what lies within a 3-D model started this project. Anatomy explores the interiors of 3-D fractal models through a tomographic process. A process often used to look inside living organisms. It takes digital cross-sections of a form and layers them together to create a complex interior portrait of each model. The entirety of the interior can never be observed at once.
Cross-sections Of Beth 651-I 3D Model
Cross-sections Of KPTH 3D Model
Cross-sections Of Takus 3D Model
Cross-sections Of Tglad 3D Model