ArtsBerry interviews some of the world’s top contemporary designers to provide our audience an inside look at everything from their design process to upcoming products and to what matters the most to them outside of the studio. Ms. Xiaoyu Xue is a New York based multidisciplinary designer with specialty in Motion Graphic, 3D Design, Branding, and Illustration. She’s currently working at the award-winning design company Sunday Afternoon. Ms. Xue’s work has been recognized by mainstream media including The New York Times, Sicky Magazine, The One Club, among others. She is also the recipient for numerous prestigious awards such as Young Ones ADC, Graphis, Competition Award ADC, and Canal Magazine TDC Awards.
Let’s start by talking a little bit about your origins.
I grew up in Guangzhou, China, a gigantic city that has over 10 million population. Guangzhou is also known as Garden City, with stunning flowers and trees in every corner. I remember how I always wanted to paint the scenes in the city when I was kid. This childhood experience inspired me and eventually guided me to be a designer/artist.
Tell me about a design project that you’re mostly proud of and what was the biggest obstacles that you overcome.
Without a doubt I would say the Liquid+Arcade rebrand case study. The challenge of the project was that it required me to build up every single scene with 3D technology, a relative new design concept for which I just started modeling and rendering for a year. I started everything with a draft of a bunch of sketches. It took me weeks and months to build up the 3d model and another weeks with the lighting. The delivery was a great success – my design has been featured on Creative Boom, GDUSA, Print, Dexingers.com, among others. I was excited and enjoyed the design process very much.
Tell me about the biggest achievements you made in design.
In term of personal growth, I would say it is my collaboration with photographer Chloe Ge for the photography series Ocean Eyes. The design experience was fascinating because it was my first attempt to combine 3D art with photography.
What’s next in this work for you? What are you looking forward to?
I’ve always been interested in exploring 3D and motion designs in combination with AI engine, such as using Midjourney, Dall-E2 and Chat GPT4. I would like to explore how I can integrate such creatives process into my arts. I have already been using AI technology in some of my unfinished projects, such as mood board building, color palette creating and texture exploring. I cannot wait to share these designs with the audience soon!
As an established designer, what advice would you give to those who just started their career as designer.
Never stop learning from people around you, friends, colleagues, family, experts, even strangers from street, and you will always gain new perspectives. Read books, books are the “elixir” for design thinking, it guides many great designers to a deeper level of design execution which touches their design work with souls.
