Yingran Xu

Embroidery——From Ha Ni to Aqkaq

To better showcase hand embroidery, I drew inspiration from traditional embroidery patterns and designed them into a font. Using each small cross-stitch as a unit in Illustrator, I arranged them into lines and then patterns. I designed and converted my hand-drawn letters into a real font using Font Lab. Although currently only the uppercase version is available, this font can already be shared and downloaded. This font design reflects the potential for traditional handicrafts in design and has become an important part of my embroidered publication. This attempt was very meaningful to me, as it represents the possibility of greater dissemination. Perhaps other people like me will be inspired to create their own patterned fonts, or even improve upon my version. This font carries my handmade work, my understanding, and can convey my vision and style to others.

“Through exploring my own ethnic minority culture and reflecting on the impact and influences of modern society on the life and cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, my work uses embroidery to interpret the intrinsic meaning of the culture. The patterns are used to express the theme and language of the embroidery, conveying the current marginalized status, contradictions, and difficulties of ethnic minorities, while also exploring and depicting the possibility of using ethnic characteristics and handicrafts for visual communication.Through this series of embroidered works, I hope to fully express the essence of this culture, using simple and profound design language to evoke emotions in the audience, and to spark reflection on the current social situation and ethnic issues.”