The site of the archaeological exploration experience course designed by Xu Jiawei and Xi Yuke. Yellow Crane Tower Cultural and Creative Ice Cream Double-Sided God Bottle Opener Refrigerator Magnet In recent years, cultural and creative products have won the favor of many young p

Xu Jiawei Xi Yuke

The site of the archaeological exploration experience course of cultural design.

Yellow Crane Tower Cultural and Creative Ice Cream

Double-sided God Bottle Opener Refrigerator Magnet

In recent years, cultural and creative products have won the favor of many young people with their unique creative designs, profound cultural heritage and practicality close to life. Favored, it has become a souvenir that many tourists take away when "checking in" at major museums and scenic spots.

This "cultural and creative craze" has not only enriched the cultural tourism consumer market, but also spawned some new industries and new occupations. In May this year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced a new batch of 19 new occupations, and cultural and creative product planning and operations engineers were among them.

What is cultural and creative design? How to design a cultural and creative product? What is the daily work of a cultural and creative product planner and operator? With curiosity about this emerging profession, the author visited Beijing Jianweiwei Culture Development Co., Ltd. and communicated with the founder, Zhao Dan.

Find the iconic element

Zhao Dan, a post-70s generation who is active in the field of marketing. Since 2019, he has devoted himself to the cultural and creative industry and designed and launched many popular products. Among them, the most classic one is "Yellow Crane Tower Ice Cream". How was the “hot product”

born?

"The starting point of cultural and creative design is often deeply rooted in the exploration and understanding of regional culture. In this process, finding and refining the most representative elements of each place is the primary task of cultural and creative product planners and operators." Zhao Dan said.

Wuhan is a city with a long history and profound cultural heritage. When Zhao Dan and his team set out to create cultural and creative products for Wuhan, their eyes naturally focused on the iconic building standing tall on the bank of the Yangtze River - the Yellow Crane Tower.

"The Yellow Crane Tower is a symbol of Wuhan. For thousands of years, countless literati and poets have stopped here, leaving behind popular poems, and the name of the Yellow Crane Tower has transcended time and space and has been praised to this day." It is this building that I fell in love with. Zhao Dan decided to use the Yellow Crane Tower as a characteristic element to develop cultural and creative products because of the representativeness and symbolism of famous buildings throughout the ages.

However, unique elements are not enough. How to find suitable carriers for these elements is a difficult problem faced by the team.

In the past, most cultural and creative products were in traditional forms, such as mugs, commemorative T-shirts, etc. Although this type of product has a certain commemorative significance, it is difficult to arouse people's desire to share.

"Good cultural and creative products should have marketing attributes, that is, they must have communication capabilities, which is crucial to enhancing the commercial value of cultural and creative products." Zhao Dan said that the Yellow Crane Tower cultural and creative ice cream cleverly combines scenic elements and marketing attributes Combination - Consumers can not only feel the cultural connotation of the building through the exquisite ice cream shape, but also actively share photos after purchase on social media. This not only drives sales, but also helps enhance the brand influence of Yellow Crane Tower and even Wuhan City.

Yellow Crane Tower Ice Cream became an instant hit, and netizens couldn’t help but lament that the “taste” of the scenic spot could still be so “sweet.” Since then, Zhao Dan and his team have cooperated with more than 300 museums and scenic spots across the country to customize ice cream, making ice cream a popular cultural and creative category.

actively innovates product forms and

cultural creation, taking culture as its warp and creativity as its weft.

"Take the cultural relic-shaped bottle opener refrigerator magnet, for example. It is a seemingly simple category. My team and I have iterated on the design three times." In the studio, Zhao Dan picked up the sample and introduced it.

At first, the team made a simple "addition": "covering" an ordinary bottle opener with a silicone coat in the shape of a cultural relic. However, such a superposition is not yet a true integration of cultural relics and cultural creativity.

Zhao Dan was not satisfied with this. So, he and his team began to "brainstorm" - Can the shape of cultural relics and product functions be combined? At this moment, a "wonderful idea" came to my mind: to make the originally "closed" bronze head of the double-faced god into an "open" shape, so that this "opening" can be used as the bayonet of a bottle opener. , product functions and design are both interesting.

Since then, they have further optimized the design of this category: in the third generation series of products, the bottle opener structure is "hidden" behind the back, so that the front shape of the cultural relic can be fully presented, and the overall design is more refined and harmonious.

"The journey of exploration in the cultural and creative field is a deep integration of tradition and modernity, art and practicality." Zhao Dan said that under the background that simple reproduction can no longer meet the aesthetic and practical needs of modern consumers , cultural and creative product planning operators should accurately capture user needs and use needs to guide product design innovation.

In addition to innovating the product structure, cultural and creative product planners and operators must also "explore their imagination" in terms of product gameplay.

In recent years, Zhiweiwei has successively launched archaeological chocolate blind boxes and cultural relic chocolate caster mold blind boxes. Of these two cultural creations, one allows users to "dig out" cultural relic chocolate from biscuit powder and experience the fun of archaeological excavation; the other allows users to immerse themselves in the exquisite craftsmanship of cultural relic casting in the process of making cultural relic-shaped chocolate.

“For these chocolate blind boxes, it is one thing to allow users to taste the unique flavor. More importantly, it is to guide users to participate, enhance the sense of interaction, and cultivate users’ interest in cultural relics and history.” Zhao Dan said.

Expands Cultural Communication Carrier

Walking into the studio, the author found that the cultural and creative products launched by Open Jianwei have background introductions of relevant cultural relics on the packaging surface and internal cards.

"The function of packaging is by no means as simple as protecting products. Packaging itself is an important carrier for transmitting cultural information." Zhao Dan said that his original intention of doing cultural creation is to spread the excellent traditional Chinese culture through various media, and packaging It is one of the media. Therefore, a cultural and creative product planning and operation engineer must not only design the product itself, but also have an overall plan for the packaging of the product.

Today, cultural creativity is no longer limited to a concrete product.

At the beginning of this year, the archaeological exploration experience course designed by Jianjian Culture was officially launched at the Capital Museum. The course content covers the three dimensions of "archaeological courses + cultural relic restoration + archaeological excavation". The course is mainly interactive experience, combining physical display, instructor explanation and hands-on practice, allowing participants to immerse themselves in the charm of archeology. So far, the number of people who have experienced the course has exceeded 10,000.

"Whether it is cultural and creative products or archaeological experience courses, we have only one purpose, which is 'enlightenment'." Zhao Dan said that the current museum craze and cultural craze reflect people's strong interest in history and culture, and the cultural and creative industry What the author has to do is to further extend this interest through various carriers.

From the initial creative concept, to detailed drawing design, to communicating with supply chain colleagues about production details, making samples, improving and iterating, until going on sale... the entire cultural and creative process involves multiple links and covers various types of work.

Today, more and more talents have joined this cultural and creative "chain". At the end of the interview, Zhao Dan also shared his advice to young practitioners.

"As a cultural and creative product planning and operator, the love and understanding of traditional culture is the foundation. But cultural and creative planning and design work is much more than that. It not only requires a steady stream of creative passion, but also an understanding of the entire production and manufacturing process. The ability to fully control market sales expectations. "Zhao Dan said that only by coordinating the resources of all parties and controlling every link can a cultural and creative product achieve both cultural connotation and market demand and become a true "explosion". payment".

The pictures in this article were provided by the interviewees