designdesignJournal of Design History1741-72790952-4649Oxford University Press10.1093/jdh/epl026ArticlesSeeing Is Believing: Reflections on Video Oral Histories with Chinese Graphic DesignersJo IshinoCatherineUniversity of Minnesota DuluthE-mail: cishino@d.umn.eduWinter2006194Special Issue: Oral Histories and Design319331© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved.2006This paper presents an overview of the historical development of video oral history, and the place it has achieved in the USA, including a report on the outcomes and studies conducted by the Smithsonian Institution, in conjunction with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986–92. It demonstrates how effective video oral history can be in documenting how graphic designers situate their works within the larger, global visual culture. As a case study, I reflect on video interviews conducted in Beijing with three generations of Chinese designers in 2004, which draw on my experience in art directing television newscasts in order to highlight parallels between video oral history and news documentaries.Chinese designersdesign historygraphic designhistory of technologyoral historyvideo oral historyIntroduction: Oral history in the USAThe introduction of the audiotape recorder in the 1950s into the print-embedded culture of US oral history (and the overarching discipline of history itself ) brought new issues to the fore.1 Early oral historians would make handwritten notes during an interview and summarize their findings in a written report.2 The accepted view at the time was of the historian as an analytical, dispassionate, empirical observer derivative of the Germanic school of history.3The core of the conundrum lies in the role of communications in the history of history. The historical profession has always been structured around the medium of the written word. Writing and history have always been synonymous, as the ‘deep structure’ of the practice of history.4With the advent of audio recordings, inflection and nuance of meaning became audible and present. Concerns arose in the process of transcribing the audiotapes to written transcripts. Should denotations of a speaker's audible and intended communications be indicated when transferring the audio to written transcripts?5 At the time, it seemed as though the very authenticity of the original interview seemed to be at issue with the advent of this new technology. This dilemma was resolved, however, with the agreement that unsaid meanings could be found by returning to the original voice recording or by reading through the multiple pages of transcripts and uncovering meanings embedded in the conversation between the interviewer and interviewee.6 When audio-recording equipment became digital and formed a stable archival record, it also became less expensive, lightweight, compact and easier to use. As a result of all these new attributes, audiotapings became adopted as standard practice for oral history gathering. Therefore, the earlier qualms about the use of audio-recording devices in conducting oral history interviews were outweighed by the convenience of being able to record accurately and preserve the ‘dialogic encounter’ between narrator and interviewer in its totality for historical posterity.Most recently, the practice of audio oral history in the USA has become popularized and mainstreamed by an organization called StoryCorp,8 which set up a recording booth in New York City's Grand Central Station to facilitate the practice whereby anyone could easily interview their ’friends or loved ones‘. The results have been archived in the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress and some are being broadcast weekly on National Public Radio.9 Subsequently, a second StoryBooth was set up in lower Manhattan with special access for families and friends remembering those lost on 9/11. The project has continued onto the national highways and towns of the USA.10Video oral history in the USASince 1948, the first oral history centre in the USA, established at Columbia University,11 sought to expand the aims of its archive of prominent individuals with orally based, contextual biographies for future historians. Its founder, Allan Nevins, wrote in his 1938 preface to The Gateway to History:… we have only the most scattered and haphazard agencies for obtaining a little of the immense mass of information about the more recent American past … which might come fresh and direct from men once prominent in politics, in business, in their professions, and other fields …12Nonetheless, the generation of the 1960s and 1970s was able to benefit from new technological recording capabilities such as audio as well video recorders. Furthermore, they sought to be more inclusive in their archival aims so as to involve the collection of local, ethnic and regional people's life stories.13In 1967, at the First National Colloquium on Oral History, Louis Shores urged the audience to utilize the emergence of new technology in the audiovisual dimension to strengthen their collections. He argued that the ability ‘to capture voice, movement and presence’ was warranted, especially for those who were ‘demonstrating a particular skill, technique or ability’ and for those who ‘interacted with their environment in a particular manner’.14 Oral histories conducted in the early 1980s for the Schomburg Center for the New York Public Library also used video. As its Director James Briggs Murray argued, ‘… more of a person can be perceived from seeing moods, expressions on a screen than can possibly be picked up from … a voice recording or … letters on a … transcript …’.15 By the 1970s and early 1980s, videotaping oral histories had become a regular practice, and the focus was on developing the use of computerized research aids and personal computers.16In order to scientifically test some of the current assumptions surrounding video history, an intensive study, The Smithsonian Videohistory Program (SVP),17 was launched to test the use of this medium from 1986 to 1992, underwritten by a five-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation of New York. There were over 300 participants, more than 250 hours of videotape recorded on twenty-two different subjects about the history of science and technology. The experiment was entitled, ‘Science in the National Life’, with participation by eighteen historians to prove that ‘scholars, rather than video producers, would define and drive the process of production; and in the spirit of scientific inquiry’.18 To begin with, the SVP committee decided not to try and conform to the industry standards of broadcast TV and filmed documentaries, rather they looked more towards testing the medium of video as a viable research tool solely for historical uses. Other parameters to be outlined were the ease and capability to archive and retrieve the collected visual material. They were insistent that the medium not be the sole impetus for research, rather the visual output should be an additive component to enhance and illustrate findings. Other practical issues were the appropriate means of documenting their final results, procedures for collaborating with outside specialists who could assist them technically with video technology and how to set up their on-site technical facilities. The Program also wanted to clarify the methods and means of consulting advice from social scientists and material cultural academics. In the end, the SVP reported their findings by stating:We found that video is generally most useful when recording the interaction of people with objects, places, or other people, when capturing personality and ‘body language’, and when exploring a process or documenting the function of artifacts.19Nonetheless, apart from revealing issues of methodology and providing an expanded knowledge-based resource, the end results had to be clearly understood and integrated into the original premise and research project. Therefore, the Program defined video history as ‘the video recording of visual information as primary historical evidence and involv[ing] a historian in shaping the original inquiry’.20 The merger of the medium and the content was ideally synthesized into one end-product, thus upholding later claims that the video outcomes were not only archival records for future historians to use but also historical entities themselves. Since the SVP's experiments ended, there has been no parallel, large systematic study of the role of video history.American oral historians have embraced the medium but the literature remains sketchy.21 As historian Dan Snipe notes:… video seems to inhabit some sort of twilight zone: many oral historians … accept the value and … even use it …7… the discussion of the relationship between oral history and moving images is only beginning. … it is the historical methodology most open to multiple modes of communication …… increasing recognition and use of moving images can help it [oral history] push both inquiry and historical communication even farther.To this end, the time has come for sustained, systematic description, discussion, and analysis of how moving images can work as an integral dimension of oral historical practice.22One year after the SVP had ended, the official account A Practical Introduction to Video History: The Smithsonian Institution and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Experiment was published. Reviewing its claims, Susan Hamovitch points out one potential problem she saw throughout the report:Ethnography, spontaneous shooting, documentary editing were ostensibly not part of the SVP. However, they crept in. … this almost scientific documentation, the recurring theme of conflict between an accurate rendering of history and an artificially manipulated product. … historians and producers were concerned with capturing emotion and spontaneity—making an exciting video—as any documentary film producer.23She cites Brien Williams as ‘one of the video producers … [who] comes closest to a verdict on the place of video-history, classifying it somewhere between an archival record and broadcast television’.24Michael Frisch, a critical figure in advancing the validity of oral history work in the USA, contended in 1990 that what oral historians produced was also ‘the object, not merely the method of history’.25 He also underlined the Program's findings stating that he understood ‘film and television as a media [sic] … and assumes the importance and relevance of film and video to oral history for documentation’.26Oral history and newscastsThe process of creating an oral history project has many parallels with news-gathering methods. In fact, the first president of the Oral History Association in the USA, Louis Starr, began his career as a journalist.27 Additionally, the first lengthy oral history project conducted by Nevins was ‘Broadcast Pioneers’ on the early years of radio (1950–52).28 He writes:The planners [of oral history] had a connection with journalism, and saw it in the daily obituary columns proof that knowledge valuable to the historian, novelist, sociologist, and economist was daily perishing forever without yielding any part of their riches.29Construction and presentation of an oral history are an important part of the historian's project, as the present Director of the Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley, Richard Cándida Smith, observes:The choice of how to organize and present interview material must follow the author's sense of … [the] way to communicate [the] story and argument. … to provide readers with information, an argumentative point of view, or human-interest stories … the author must anticipate the confusions of the original text and answer the queries that readers might address to the speaker … a vibrant human being oral historians have come to know, respect and admire. … an author must convey to readers, almost none of whom will ever personally meet the interviewee by sharing his … response to interviewees and their stories [to a] much broader public to get a glimmer of the effect the narrator can have on others.30Although referring to written publications, the precepts of what Smith proposes could readily apply to TV news journalism practices, the medium of videotape and its visual narrative outcomes. Ideally, the ethical and moral responsibility of the journalist is to allow the key points of an interviewee to be communicated directly to the viewer. Also, he or she must carefully consider the pertinent questions the viewers would want to ask,31 as well as how to convey the context, meaning and the ‘tele-visual presence’ of the interviewee and their ‘story’.Smith goes on to make the following point that further parallels the news-editing process and protocol in creating a story for TV broadcast:Rearrangement … heightens drama and emotion, making for a better read, but from a more purely intellectual perspective, its primary functions are to help the reader see as clearly as possible choices that narrators recall having faced in the past along with emotional and practical consequences.32This editing is standard practice in newsrooms.33 The goal is to depict a story as succinctly and accurately as is viable within the given constraints of a newscast.Additionally, Smith points to the primary dilemma ‘facing authors of … oral history work [as] not one of techniques but of principles’. He concludes:My goal … for presentation is to refocus attention onto the circuits of meaning that constitute public communication. Exchange of perspectives characterizes oral speech. Publication of oral history work may involve an inevitable alienation from the source but if such work perpetuates dialogue, if it opens up new ways of looking at social relations and the roots of the present in the past retains, it remains faithful to the inner logic of oral history.34Consequently, in 2004, attending the first Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) Congress to be held in China, I brought my mini-DV video camera equipment in order to document this historic event, more as an ‘embedded’ visual journalist (and educator, to expose my cloistered students to another design culture) [1], and to further continuing research in making video oral histories of graphic designers.35Fig 1 Pagoda and Satellite, rooftop of Taiwan Hotel, Wangfujing Dajie (Street), Beijing 2004. Photograph, C. IshinoThe coverage surrounding the New China, its free-market economy, exponential manufacturing growth and exploding consumer culture in the media were unavoidable [2]. The AGI Congress would undoubtedly affect the country's design sensibility, especially given that the design enterprise itself is so linked to cultural changes and events.36 As graphic design historian Philip Meggs has noted:The immediacy and ephemeral nature of graphic design, combined with its link with the social, political and economic life of its culture, enable it to more closely express the Zeitgeist of an epoch than many other forms of human expression.37Fig 2 One World Department Store, Dengshixikou (Street), Beijing, 2004. Photograph, C. IshinoMoreover, the AGI Congress schedule had conveniently set aside a ‘Chinese Design Day’ devoted to design and designers from Hong Kong, Macao and the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC). All were to present their regions' design work.38 I would be a first-hand witness able to document key graphic designers in China showing their work, in many cases for the first time to a global professional audience.As had been my practice in my TV news days, I sought to determine what ‘the story’ might be, as well as researching which designers and designs to include, leading to the decision to conduct interviews with three generations of designers, at various stages of their careers in order to document perceptions of change. Aged between 20 and 70 years, each designer would have distinct perspectives on the PRC's rapid economic growth, particularly as these changes placed extraordinary demands on design and designers locally.39Moreover, as had been noted:… since China's social and political reforms began in 1979, there have been three generations in Chinese design. Until the early 1990s, the first generation still created mainly handmade work as there were few computers in the country. The second embraced the Macintosh and began to absorb international design influences. The third … grew up in the age of the Internet with access to information not available to earlier Chinese designers. They have an international outlook … share the ‘independent DIY spirit’ found in young designers the world over.40I sensed that the PRC designers must have felt the pressure of history to broaden their design identity and sensibilities, especially given their previously isolated state.41 In brief, I wanted to ask the fundamental questions of a news-breaking reporter in the world of graphic design.Case study: Beijing designersYu Bingnan (b. 1933)42 was my first interviewee. He was the initiator and main organizer of the AGI annual conference in Beijing. In 1992, Yu Bingnan was the first PRC designer to become a member of AGI, nominated by the ‘father of Hong Kong design’ Henry Steiner.43 He was currently a Professor at the Academy of Art and Design at Tsinghua University [3]. Since Yu Bingnan had practised before and after the ‘free-market’ economy, I was hoping he would provide me with a broad perspective on his country's design. (Moreover, I knew from my news experience that given his seniority, his consent would pave the way for the others to follow.) For consistency and editing purposes, the interview location was constant.Fig 3Yu Bingnan, 1998, Poster: Taiwan Image, Chinese Character: FamilyYu Bingnan, a lean man, dressed austerely in a dark shirt and trousers, was reminiscent, to an outsider to Chinese culture, of a Politburo leader, as often shown of the National Congress Party of China meetings in the US mass media. A stereotypical representation revealing my own cultural visual references:… we secure answers to … questions in split-second observations of each other's appearance as composed of body movements, facial expressions, gestures, clothing, and adornment. … clothing is usually perceived before voice can be heard or gestures and facial expressions seen. Thus clothing and adornment, as they modify appearance, become a universal, primary, nonverbal communication system. It is a complex intentional system learned by all members of any culture at an early age.44Throughout our interview, he seemed formal and reserved, which seemed to match his high status within the AGI Congress gathering,45 yet at times, he would lean forward as if to emphasize a key point.46 He would pause before answering,47 but in accordance with advice to Westerners doing business with China: ‘Silence can be a virtue …, so don't be dismayed if there are periods of silence in your … business conversations. It is a sign of politeness and of contemplation’.48What follows is an excerpted and paraphrased translation of the interview through an interpreter.49CI: What is the difference between design today and twenty years ago?YB: Today graphic design in China is more professional and mature. Yet our design is at an early stage of its development and potential. Right now, our graphic design level is finally capable of setting up a dialogue with our design counterparts worldwide and on a more equal standing. I know these exchanges are helping with our progress in graphic design.CI: Do you find Chinese designers looking to Europe and America?YB: Chinese find their own way, they look back to their own tradition and education. They combine the professionalism of visual language and universal language to create their own originality.CI: What do you think the relationship between Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan design is today?YB: Ten years ago, the level in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was much better. This has changed with informal and international exchange. The Mainland China group is doing very well, so there is not much difference now. The localities do express their own visual languages and still share commonalities.CI: What do you see as the future of PRC design?YB: Younger and more brilliant designers are emerging. There is a lot of potential for commerciality. There is professionalism in the near future. Younger designers are more sensitive to new and better designs than the older generation. But with their [desire for] individualism, they must remember their culture.CI. What do you think about designers in US?YB. I have lots of respect for American designers. I have grown to appreciate the high levels of professionalism and individualism, expressed through the visual language of our counterparts in the USA. We could create more links, so more exchanges and greater understanding could take place between us. Hopefully, more exchanges like the one we are having now will happen, which will expand the visual language of American and Chinese designers so a more peaceful world will come.Throughout our interview, Yu Bingnan conveyed his view that with the formation of the ‘New China’, design in both East and West is being transformed by more open communication.50The second interview51 was with Min Wang (b. 1956),52 since 2003 Dean of the School of Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, the only fine arts school supported by the PRC's Central Government. Wang had been raised and educated in the PRC. At the age of 27 years, he left to study graphic design in Germany (1983) and the USA (1986), eventually lecturing on graphic design to graduate students at his alma mater, Yale University, from 1989 to 1998. While teaching, he also worked for Adobe Systems in various senior design roles. Min Wang was among the first to use ‘Illustrator’ software to design Chinese characters or radicals for Japanese users of Adobe's fonts. He had helped create the visual presentation that won Beijing the bid for the 2008 Olympic games. For the oral history project, he represented the crossover generation, who had gone to America for higher education. He had lived and worked there for 17 years, then returned home in 2003, when the free-market economy took hold. Wang's background uniquely qualified him as the ideal bicultural and bilingual designer addressing both Eastern and Western design sensibilities [4].Fig 4 Min Wang, 2004, Poster: Chinese Studies at Stanford UniversityWang spoke in English during the interview.53 In his dress and manner, Wang was not unlike the Eastern Seaboard intellectuals from Ivy League schools, an appearance he must have adopted while teaching at Yale for almost a decade.54 As with Yu Bingnan, my questions focused on the experience of change; Min Wang's replies arise out of his experience of the sharp contrasts between the USA and PRC, which he understood I could share.CI: Why did you leave China to get your higher education?MW: China was closed. I couldn't see what was going on outside. I wanted help to become a designer and design educator, so I went overseas to Germany and the USA.CI: How is China different from when you left?MW: The change is enormous, incredible, hard to describe … very different when I left in 1983. There were no highways. We had few cars. There was no branding. Not even much color printing. The term, logo, would have been misunderstood then.CI: Why did you decide to come back to China to become a teacher and a Dean at CAFA?MW: After 25 years of change, China changed from a closed society to an open market society. … CAFA is central to fine arts and design education too in China today. I want to contribute to China and [its] change, to make good designers, improve society and peoples' lives.CI: What do you think is important for your students to learn or know as future designers?MW: Change is constant. To give perspective from both sides—Western and China. Don't just imitate design from Europe or America. Use own culture with strong Chinese character, color and identity.CI: How would you describe the Chinese identity?MW: Hard to describe. Hard to choose words. Not just use elements from Chinese art or culture. Have much more to bring to international platform. Be first compatible with Chinese people and understand their identity. Help others understand Chinese and at the same time Chinese identity.CI: How would you describe design in China today?MW: The need for design has increased tremendously. There are many more designers today and so many schools. Twenty years ago, there were about ten schools offering design programs. Now there are 1400, by conservative estimates. There is a big need for design educators.CI: How would you differentiate the design between Hong Kong, Taiwan and Beijing?MW: There is a lot of differentiation …55 Actually they have helped Mainland Chinese designers and the schools in the past 20 years to transform from a closed society into today's society. They all contribute to today's Chinese design.CI: What do you perceive the role of design in Mainland China?MW: Graphic design is one of the best occupations and most popular. I would say most desirable position for young kids. Better paid, relatively speaking. They make art and make money and make design. And design is art. They want to be designers. And there is a big need. It's a good thing to be a designer in China.CI: What would you say to US designers about the future of Mainland Chinese design?MW: Right now I would say, it's very exciting in the design field. Graphic designers and design in China are in a stage which could lead to a big leap forward. Very soon, even today, you can see a lot of young designers, very smart, talented … doing impressive work and you will see this more and more.His enthusiastic responses gave the distinct impression of how he was caught up in the reinvigoration of his homeland. Perhaps, having lived outside the country for nearly twenty years, in contrast to Yu Bingnan, Wang was more focused on the role he might be able to play in China's future through his direct participation in the PRC's national design policy, as well as CAFA's design pedagogy, which was supported by outstanding technical facilities (better than those in the USA) and a new, dedicated building. Also, as a second-generation designer and educator, Wang was cognizant that while it was important for his students to compete in the international design arena, it was also crucial they maintain a sense of their distinct ‘Chinese-ness’ as Yu Bingnan had emphasized in his interview.The interview with Song Xiewei (b. 1963)56 was mediated once more through the interpreter. A self-described artist/designer/tutor/associate professor, Song teaches at CAFA. He has his own eponymous independent design practice and was treated by the young designers at the conference as a celebrity. Conceivably, Song had attained this status because he was among the first in the PRC to implement a studio model of working that was thriving and highly successful. Nationally and internationally, he had won scores of prestigious design awards.57 His exalted lifestyle involves frequent travels throughout Europe, Canada and the USA. Song Xiewei seemed to epitomize design success in the New China. On Chinese Design Day, he was selected by the host committee to present the work of emerging PRC designers including some of CAFA's former students. At the conference, he was also a key figure.His designer penthouse studio overlooking Beijing was evidence of his success.58 During the interview, students were shooting flash pictures and asking for his autograph to be penned on their shirts. Song, too, had signatures scrawled across his white, open collared and loose flapping dress shirt, but his were of world-renowned designers in attendance at the conference. Song was the leader of this young group of designers, many of whom also worked in his home and campus studios. He appeared to set the tone and behaviour for them, which they gladly followed. Song's hairstyle was a shoulder length, layered cut, very modern and hip as well as unusual for men on the streets of Beijing. Also, unlike my two earlier interviewees, Song smiled frequently.59CI: How is design different from when you started over twenty years ago?60SX: In the past, we focused on functionality, the basic elements of design. Today, with the advancement of high-end information technology, our way of living and even our way of thinking has been greatly changed. Currently, our design is focused on the humanistic side and individualist expression in our work.Young designers and students' work expresses the visual language of the era of high tech. They grew up in it, they depend on it. They are more in the modern era—cross cultural and international. Consider their education. They couldn't survive with a traditional educational background.High tech, IT, affects my work and I learn it from young designers, who feel quite natural with it. We seek a higher designer economy in China—quantity, larger and bigger. But it's not like that today. … The significance of designers and role they should play, [should be] comprehensive, impact everyday life, to every corner.CI: How would you compare and contrast the design of Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong?SX: There is a great deal of difference in the design of these three places. The design in Mainland China has been conceptually infused with a strong sense of Chinese cultural context. But also, of late, we have been undergoing a lot of modernization. The design in Hong Kong is highly successful commercially. And to the extent that a Chinese cultural influence is in their work, I can see they are much more advanced than us in Mainland China. As for design in Taiwan, to their credit, they have returned to their cultural traditions of Chinese and Asian culture.CI: Any advice for young designers?SX: Try and focus on the process of design and the details. Give more consideration to the concepts, creativity and new ideas related to high-end information technology. By doing this, they can become more contemporary, create good concepts and strong market potential. Also they should keep in mind, the impact of local and traditional cultures; where they originate. Without considering their locality, paradoxically, they cannot become international in their scope of design creation.CI: What would you say about US design?SX: American design has been more advanced than in China, due to its extensive history in the industry. They have a huge market in China at the moment. But still, there is room for progress in the US and China.CI: Tell me about the space you have created here [at his studio penthouse, where all the interviews took place]:SX: I designed my own studio space. I wanted to make all the elements controversial. In the middle is a cement box; it's anti-decoration. The outside is the inside. The exterior space here is for use by designers. As the interior space can be very busy [with work], I wanted to create a space they could relax, be in nature with the bamboo trees, the pond and running water, the rock garden, fresh air and so on.Unlike my two previous interviewees, Song Xiewei seemed to be more an avant-garde practitioner in his outlook and work61 than a teacher or administrator [5]. Also, he was the most outspoken about his personal opinions on design, and Song's aspirations for Chinese design having a powerful role in the world, allied most closely with the international designers' aims for design at this Congress.Fig 5Song Xiewei, 2002, Calendar in ‘Half Book’ format: ‘Above the surface, Beyond the border’The final set of interviews was with a young, group practice of designers, Liu Zhizhi (b. 1975), He Jun (b. 1977) and Jiang Su (b. 1977).62 All were graduates of CAFA, under the tutelage of Song Xeiwei. All three were dressed in the most current, hip-hop style of global youth culture. Liu Zhizhi's English-speaking girlfriend acted as interpreter. The works of the designers they most admired were from Japan, Germany, Holland and England.CI: What do you think of Hong Kong and Taiwanese designers?Answer: They are way ahead of the game compared to us. Taiwan designers put more traditional elements into their work, so visually the work ends up looking more Chinese. Hong Kong designers have a style more like the Western63 designers, but they keep some of the Chinese sensibilities. Their work looks like it's undergoing a transitional change from Eastern to Western design. Taiwan designers use traditional Chinese elements more accurately and profoundly than the Mainland or Hong Kong designers. Currently, we, Mainland designers, choose to follow the Western design more.CI: What do you think the future of PRC is?Answer: There is a bright future in design. [People] consume design as they do other products.CI: How would you describe the state of PRC design?Answer: We have confidence in ourselves. We can make it better.CI: What advice would you give to other designers?Answer: First have confidence in [one's] self. [Try to] gain techniques in a short period [of time]. Never give up, just keep doing it.CI: What do you love about design?Answer: [We] discover new things and create new things everyday. [We] are responsible for ourselves and our own work.CI: Anything you'd like to say to US designers? What about the state of PRC design today?Answer: We very much like the work of young American designers. They seem to be doing very well. Comparatively speaking, it seems as if their career paths are relatively clearer and smoother than ours in China. We can work together!These young designers were much more informal and uninhibited in their demeanour. They exuded youthful confidence and optimism, unabashed in their desire to follow the Western (as opposed to international or modern) way of design which provided a way to express themselves, and have the freedom to evolve in their own independent manner, unlike the preceding generations, who believed in maintaining the dialectic of the West and the East in their design work. This is where the third generation stood apart. The first generation was working to gain international attention by creating exchanges. The second one was interested in gaining global stature by winning design awards. This third generation felt able and confident enough to invite others to work with them.64Cross-cultural interviewingAs Valerie Yow has commented:Generally, there is more open communication when age, gender, class and race are the same, but in any interviewing situation the interviewer must be conscious of the ways in which these basic social attributes impinge. Sensitivity in interpersonal relations and respect create the climate most conducive to a productive interview.65As a second-generation, American-born woman of Japanese descent,66 in interviewing three generations of Beijing designers, all of whom were men, I became cognizant of my bicultural background as well my gender. I was conscious of not only Japan's long, conflicted history with China, battling one another for land and power, but also the troublesome relationship the USA had with the PRC, for example, on issues regarding Taiwan. As a person who straddles both Asian and Western cultures, I was sensitive to how these intercultural issues might affect my interview.67 As Edward T. Hall, cultural anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, states:I am convinced that much of our difficulty with other people in other countries stems from the fact that so little is known about cross-cultural communication … Formal training in the language, history, government, and customs of another nation is only the first step in a comprehensive program.68Debates in cross-cultural communication69 highlighted how my upbringing70 inadvertently affected these interviews, as did my role as an educator attentive to the ‘colonizer's gaze’ and visual multiculturalism.71A recent visual anthropologists' revisionist critique of Margaret Mead's ethnographic films72 is not unlike what occurred when I worked in the news media in the late 1980s and early 90s when US reporters were airlifted into war zones with little background information on the country they were assigned to cover.73When we view culture as such an infinitely complex mesh of intertwined behaviors … in constant movement … we further realize that in today's rapidly shrinking world, due to a growing intercultural awareness and communication among countries, it is becoming more and more difficult to define individual cultures in themselves, we understand that the term communication can almost never represent an absolute concept.74ConclusionThese three generations of Beijing designers represented the transformations of their country in which the swift development of the free-market economy propelled them into the midst of the global design sphere. Generational notions of regional design similarities and differences reflected the impact of past political sovereignties and economic systems. The first two generations upheld the importance of maintaining their national visual identity, while continuing to reach out to international designers to develop and modernize their own work. In contrast, the third generation, already steeped in modernization, stood certain in wanting to work with, though not necessarily learn from, the West.Using videotape to document these designers, I was able to capture not only their tele-visual presence, the animated spirit of each person as well as their expressions but also their dress, hairstyles and the dialogic encounter itself. Also, as a motion and video designer, I was able to apply my background in TV news to create my video narratives with more visually descriptive and informative framing to convey the context and experience of the recordings. Designer, Hillman Curtis, who has been creating MTV-type video portraits of graphic designers75 has noted how… It's a whole different story creating video for the Web, because you have to have information, telling your story in a tighter timeframe than broadcast … the Web is the first truly global medium. No borders. … You can't rely on words to get your message across in different countries and motion is just one more tool that can help you. … It's a universal language. It transcends text-based communications. … many people in the industry feel this union of video and the Web will become the standard.76The significance of Web-based dissemination and access has become key. After a visit to China in 2005, design writer Rick Poynor posted his view that:If there is cause for hope … a new form of public space … from a Chinese point of view. … Large quantities of information are now able to break through the traditional system of information control … The Internet gives the Chinese an anonymous platform for opinions that cannot otherwise be expressed freely. … Digital images … are helping to create a new, more democratic order in Chinese society.77In closing, graphic design's visual oral history has taken another leap forward bringing in its wake a new set of methodological issues—not only with video streaming but also with other digital authoring and duplication devices such as DVDs.78Simply put I would argue the essence of graphic design communication is visual. This ever-changing craft and practice is bound and expanded by technological advances. The history of its work and people should also move ahead and be documented as moving imagery which itself becomes an analytic category. What better medium than digital, streaming video to create a visual oral history of its makers? Digital moving imagery is the most all-encompassing archival form of documentation and distribution currently available, enabling video oral designs historians to create living histories of designers, their work processes, interactions and environments, and to disseminate this globally.1D. K. Dunaway, ‘The Interdisciplinary of Oral History: Introduction’ in D. K Dunaway & W. K. Baum (eds.), Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, 2nd edn., Alta Mira Press, Walnut Creek, 1996, p.16.2B. Tuchman, ‘Distinguishing the Significant from the Insignificant’, in D. K. Dunaway & W. K. Baum, op. cit., p. 97.3V. R. Yow, Recording Oral History, 2nd edn., Alta Mira Press, Walnut Creek, 2005, p. 4.4D. Sipe, ‘The Future of Oral History and Moving Images’, in R. Perks & A. Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, Routledge Press, New York, 1998, p. 379.5S. Page, ‘The Invisible Participant: The Role of the Transcriber’, Interpreting Meaning in Oral History Research for The Power of Oral History: Memory, Healing and Oral History, 2002, XII International Oral History Conference, p. 5.6D. K. Dunaway, op. cit., p. 8.7D. Sipe, op. cit., p. 384.8See the StoryCorps project: http://www.storycorps.net/about/, accessed August 2006.9See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989, accessed August 2006.10StoryMobile founder, David Isay, a former radio broadcaster, in response to my query about using video, replied, ‘No, as I believe the voice is the soul of a person’.11A. Nevins, ‘Oral History: How and Why it was Born’, in D. K. Dunaway & W. K. Baum, op. cit., p. 29–38.12A. Nevins, The Gateway to History (1938) quoted by L. Starr, ‘Oral History’, in D. K. Dunaway & W. K. Baum, op. cit., p. 44.13D. K. Dunaway, op. cit., p. 7.14L. Starr, op. cit, p. 1–2.15T. A. Schorzman (ed.), A Practical Introduction to Videohistory: The Smithsonian Institution and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Experiment, Krieger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida, 1993, p. 2.16D. K. Dunaway, op. cit., p. 7.17Ibid. ‘Preface’, viii.18S. Hamovitch, ‘A Practical Introduction: The Smithsonian and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Experiment’ (Reviews), Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, March 1995, available on http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2584/is_n1_v15/ai_16922331, accessed May 2006.19T. A. Schorzman, op. cit., p. 21. The quote goes on to state ‘Video is least helpful in historical research when people talk about abstract concepts, which is better left for audio or written text’—a view this paper refutes.20T. A. Schorzman, op. cit., ‘Preface’, p. vii.21K. Howarth, Oral History: A Handbook, Sutton Publishing Limited, Phoenix Mill, 1998, pp. 160–70.22D. Sipe ‘The Future of Oral History and Images’, in R. Perks & A. Thomson (eds.), op. cit., p. 387–8.23S. Hamovitch, op. cit.24Ibid.25R. Perks & A. Thomson, op. cit., ‘Introduction’, p. 2–3.26M. Frisch, ‘A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History’, in R. Perks & A. Thomson, op. cit., p. 384–5.27L. Starr, op. cit., p. 39.28L. Starr, op. cit., p. 45.29A. Nevins, op. cit., p. 31.30R. C. Smith, ‘Publishing Oral History: Oral Exchange and Print Culture’, in T. Charlton, L. Myers & R. Sharpless (eds.), Oral History Handbook, Alta Mira Press, Walnut Creek, 2006, ch. 13, p. 5–6.31‘Mr. MacNeil and Mr. Lehrer, in their passion to avoid adversarial or advocacy journalism, do not draw conclusions. They only ask questions.’ J. Corry on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, The New York Times, 1 August 1985.32R. C. Smith, op. cit. p. 9.33For more information on video editing, see chapter in book by H. Zettl, ‘Structuring the Four-Dimensional Field: Continuity Editing and Complexity Editing’, in Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics, Thompson/Wadsworth, Belmont, 2005.34R. C. Smith, op. cit. p. 18.35See Godard, Kidd & Danziger video clips http://www.catherineishino.org, portfolio, oral histories. Other interviewees include Keith Goddard, Victor Margolin, Janet and Peter Good.36For broader overview of cultural changes and impact on graphic design in China, see article by W. S. Wong, ‘Detachment and unification: a Chinese graphic design history in Greater China since 1979 ’, Design Issues, vol. 17, no. 4, Autumn 2001, MIT Press, Boston, p. 51–71; and book by S. Minick and J. Ping, Chinese Graphic Design in the Twentieth Century, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1990.37P. B. Meggs, ‘Preface to the First Edition’, in A History of Graphic Design, 3rd edn., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1998, p. xiii.38See W. S. Wong's paper, ‘In search of a new graphic design frontier in China: establishing the “Chinese-ness” of international style’, available on http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/conferences/CD_doNotOpen/ADC/final_paper/081.pdf, accessed August 2006. Also, W. S. Wong, Ph.D., Curator, Lubalin Curatorial Fellow, Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, Chinese Graphic Design towards the International Sphere, 2000, The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, September 2001, available on http://www.cooper.edu/art/lubalin/cgd/, accessed 4 August 2006.39For influence of economic changes on Chinese design see article by C. Dillnot, ‘Which way will the dragon turn? Three scenarios for design in China over the next half-century ’, p. 5–20, and T. Fry, ‘The futherings of Hong Kong’, p. 71–82, Design Issues, vol. 19, no. 3, Summer 2003, MIT Press, Boston.40Ou Ning, one of the show's curators, ‘Get it Louder’ exhibition in Shenzhen, in southern China, notes that, ‘When doing the selection, we especially avoided those works that use Chinese elements on purpose’. In his mid-thirties, he is the very model of a restlessly mobile, boundary-breaking contemporary designer person, working as a writer, music promoter and graphic designer … and founder of U-thèque, an independent film and video organization. R. Poynor, http://www.designobserver.com/archives/002505.html, accessed July 2006.41For more on designers’ identity and work see online article by W. S. Wong, ‘In search of a new graphic design frontier in China: establishing the “Chinese-ness’’ of international style’—http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/conferences/CD_doNotOpen/ADC/final_paper/081.pdf—from paper given at the Asian Design International Conference, Tsukuba, 2003, and published in the Journal of the Asian Design International Conference, vol. 1 and The 6th Asian Design International Conference Proceedings (CD-Rom). Also, see H. Clark ‘Introduction’, p. 1–3, and her conversation with B. D. Leong, ‘Culture-based knowledge towards a new design thinking,’ p. 48–58, Design Issues, vol. 19, no. 3, Summer 2003, MIT Press, Boston.42Bingnan is the vice president of Icograda and an honour legate of the International Trademark Center. In 1956, he graduated from LuXun Academy of Fine Arts, attaining his Master's degree from the Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig in Germany in 1962.43For more information on Henry Steiner, see http://www.commarts.com/CA/feaint/china/110_china.html, accessed August 2006.44F. Poyatos (ed.), ‘Clothing as Nonverbal Communication’, in Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication, C. J. Hoegrefe, Toronto, 1988, p. 292–4. Also see M. Argyle, Bodily Communication, Methuen and Co Ltd, London, 1975.45‘… most Chinese maintain an impassive expression when speaking.’ See Kwintessential, culture and language experts, available on http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/china-country-profile.html, accessed July 2006.46‘Posture is important [in China] so don’t slouch …,’ R. E. Axtell, Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1991, p. 172.47‘Non-verbal signals are used to manage much the same range of situations and relationships in all cultures, and these in turn are similar to those found in animal societies’. M. Argyle, op. cit., p. 94–5.48R. E. Axtell, op. cit., p. 173.49Interpreter Jin Hua is the International Deputy Director of CAFA, educated in his English-speaking skills in Australia.50See W. S. Wong's paper, op. cit.51For a video clip of his interview, please see http://www.catherineishino.org, portfolio, oral histories, min wang.52For Min Wang's work, see http://www.a-g-i.org/about/member_work.php?id=474&nationalgroup=China&country_code=cn, accessed June 2006.53We knew the same colleagues, and were familiar with each other's companies.54‘… cross-cultural observers can trace the “trickle down” adaptation by … metamorphosing, cultures of clothing from dominant cultures. Study of culture diffusion patterns indicates that men are the first to adopt clothing artifacts from … an alien … culture.’ F. Poyatos, op. cit., p. 301.55For the sake of not repeating essentially the same answer that Yu Bingnan's gave, I have given only what Wang contributed.56For biographical information on Song Xiewei, see http://www.cipb.org/introenall.htm, accessed June 2006.57For list of awards see The History of Chinese Graphic Design: Designing in the New Century, available on http://www.cipb.org/introenall.htm.58To see article and inside view of his studio, see http://www.21stcentury.com.cn/article.php?side=4224, accessed June 2006.59‘Nonverbal communication can be used as international, intercultural and interracial language. … Whether in the United States, China, or South America, people seem to have the same general meaning for a smile.’ L. A. Samovar, R. E. Porter & N. C. Jain, Understanding Intercultural Communication, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, 1981, p. 160.60‘Each participant will take an opportunity to dominate the floor for lengthy periods. … Be patient and listen. There could be subtle messages being transmitted that would assist you …’ See Kwintessential, op. cit.61See http://www.a-g-i.org/about/member_work.php?id=450&nationalgroup=China&country_code=cn, accessed June 2007.62I have not separated out each designer's response, but combined them.63Note the use of ‘Westerner’ versus ‘International’ in the two previous interviews. I believe this indicative of the Euro-Ameri-centric attraction the mass exportation of entertainment industry has on youth culture worldwide. In fact, entertainment is America's largest moneymaking export.64For more information on young Chinese designers, see http://www.designobserver.com/archives/002505.html and http://www.getitlouder.com/, accessed August 2006.65V. R. Yow, op. cit., p. 169–79.66My grandparents were born in Japan (b. 1880s), and emigrated to the USA (1890–1910). Both my parents were born in southern California (b. 1920s). I was born and primarily raised in the Midwest (b. 1952). My father is a professor of cultural anthropology. My mother practises and teaches Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, and has attained highest level of certification. I have lived briefly in Japan.67For more on intercultural communications, see F. Poyatas, Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication: Studies in Cultural Anthropology, Social Psychology, Linguistics, Literature, and Semiotics, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1983.68Edward T. Hall quoted in Samovar, R. E. Porter, & N. C. Jain, op. cit., p. 154.69For more on nonverbal interactions between nations, see Geert Hofstede's IBM study on the web, available on http://feweb.uvt.nl/center/hofstede/page3.htm, accessed August 2006. Also see European Commission backed website, http://www.media-net-works.de/, ‘The aim of the project Intercultural ICT-mediated Communication competencies as a key to enable participation in a network society’.70‘[A] person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background.’ Dr Ruth Useem, 2001. For more information on ‘Third culture kids’, see http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art5.html, accessed August 11, 2006; this article was first published in NewsLinks—the newspaper of International Schools Services, vol. 13, no. 4, March 1994, Princeton.71See L. Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America, NW Norton, New York, 1990; L. Lippard, Lure of the Local, New Press, New York, 1997; S. Sontag, On Photography, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1977.72J. Collier, Jr & M. Collier, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1986. ‘Foreword’, pp. xiii–xvii. ‘Film and video’, ch. 11, pp. 139–49.73For more information, see D. Schechter, Global Policy Forum, 777 UN Plaza, Suite 3D, New York, available on http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/media/2004/1109spin.htm, accessed 11 August 2006, and http://www.zmag.org/schechteraudio.html.74F. Poyatas, op. cit., p. 13.75For more on video portraits of graphic designers, see http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/artistvideoseries, accessed July 2006.76Available on http://www.cmykmag.com/magazine/issues/013/articles/agency/agency_1a.html, accessed July 2006.77R. Poynor, Design Observer, 05.05.05, available on http://www.designobserver.com/archives/002505.html, accessed August 2006.78‘… liberating power to DVD piracy, which has broken down cultural isolation by allowing the Chinese cheap access to previously unavailable films.’ R. Poynor, op. cit.