Integrity And Innovation

In this dissertation, I study the design philosophy and books improved behavior of Ning Chengchun who is a book designer in mid and late 20th century.Ning Chengchun is a member of China’s first batch of book designers to Japan to learn the new technology, whose works not only inherited the traditional Chinese design, but also absorbed the Japanese advanced design technology, and formed its own unique "Sanlian Gray" design style.He has created a series of enduring works, such as Red Star Over China, Peng Dehuai autobiography, the memory of Norman Bethune and China Modern academic masterpiece series,....in the eighties.The concept which is from binding to book design has contributed to China’s book designing revolution and Ning Chengchun has always insisted on this in his design career.Book design art does not depend on doing some superficial and simple processing like dressing up to grab reader’s attention, but do design according to book’s content, it is a combination of technology, materials and art.Books design emphasizes the all-round overall conception, are a combination of inner and outer, text and content, the design should be from outside to inside, layer upon layer depth.One of the outstanding books will not only pass on information to the reader, but also gives the reader a imagination for a long time, it is a life that writer, designer, editor, printer, bookstore worker pour into the feelings together.Ning Chengchun practices what one advocates, does design combined with materials, conceives the books’ flat, vertical surface, material, texture, technology and other design languages with the viewpoint of aesthetics, constructs the book into the hexahedral which can store information, and gives books the overall artistic charm from outside to inside, creates one by one inventive books with enduring vitality.Ning Chengchun considers the way to design good works is understand text and take readers into heart, the key of his design is usual mind. Ning has designed lots of excellent works in his lifetime and is a model for the junior designers. Ning’s works are appreciated and analyzed in this dissertation, design philosophy is summarized in terms of thoughts, spirit and culture, thereby the issue how Ning play the leading role in book design industry is explored, Ning’s position and contribution in the history of book designing are summarized.