Today, August 17, 2021 is the fourth anniversary of Irene Cho’s passing. Irene is the woman behind the peacock 🦚 emoji that we all have on our smartphones. And this story is my way of remembering her and sharing a small piece of her huge legacy.

Emoji is what brought Irene into my life on November 2, 2016, just before the inaugural Emojicon, a conference celebrating emojis. Emojicon was held at the Bespoke event space in the San Francisco Westfield Mall on November 4–6, 2016. Jennifer 8. Lee, the conference co-founder, connected me with Irene, who was then working as a marketing executive with Burma Superstar, a popular San Francisco restaurant chain and one of the sponsors of the Emojicon. I collaborated with Jennifer over a year ago, designing several food emojis and she felt that Irene and I had a strong connection.

Irene invited me to meet at Burma Love (Burma Superstar’s sister restaurant) on Valencia Street in the Mission district. As I sat down, I noticed peacock decorations everywhere.

I was immediately intrigued and asked Irene why there were so many peacock symbols in the restaurant. “I actually didn’t know much about it.” She replied, and looked at the waiter who was serving us the delicious Burmese tea leaf salad, “Let’s ask the waiter. He is from Burma, perhaps he can tell us”. The waiter told us the cultural and historical significance of peacocks to the Burmese people. We learned that the peacock, more accurately, the green peafowl, called the ‘daung’, is the national bird of Burma.

As we finished our meal and exchanged phone numbers, we naturally tried to text each other the peacock emoji. To our amazement, we realized that it didn’t exist on our phone keyboards.

“Well, the Emojicon conference is the day after tomorrow. Perhaps we should submit a peacock emoji!” I jokingly said, while thinking it would be impossible. The dumpling emoji proposal took Jennifer, a few friends, and me several months to complete. We also had to trek to Palo Alto to present the proposal in person to the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit Silicon Valley group responsible for approving all emojis. Both of us were very busy with our full-time jobs, but it was something that we both happened to be passionate about. I started to hesitate but Irene exclaimed “Let’s do it! We will make it.”

We met again in the late afternoon of Emojicon’s 2nd day and we were both exhausted after working our day jobs. Yet, Irene still beamed with so much enthusiasm: “Have you started creating the artwork? I have already started the writing part of the proposal! We might still be able to make it.” It turned out we did have a shot: There was an Emoji Hackathon session at the conference where any attendee could submit an emoji proposal to attending Unicode Consortium representatives. Still, it’s a lot of work, and we only had one day to make the deadline.

But something kept telling us to do it. As we both walked out of the event venue, we even felt “chased” by peacocks. The window displays of many different shops had some kind of peacock theme — definitely a sign from the universe to complete the peacock emoji proposal!

We headed into an all-nighter and by the next day, Irene finished writing the proposal, while I completed the design of the peacock emoji. We crafted a presentation 15 minutes before the event ended and presented our proposal to Unicode and the Emojicon attendees during the emoji hackathon. Here is a tweet of us presenting the peacock emoji at the end of the Emojicon:

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 🧋 陆怡颖 on Twitter: "Glad to present the Peacock #emoji design with @cho_business today at @emojiconco, celebrating its culture, nature, history & beauty. 💚💙🇮🇳🇲🇲 pic.twitter.com/5OWI1jmPvY / Twitter"

Glad to present the Peacock #emoji design with @cho_business today at @emojiconco, celebrating its culture, nature, history & beauty. 💚💙🇮🇳🇲🇲 pic.twitter.com/5OWI1jmPvY

A few weeks later, the Unicode Consortium accepted our proposal and short-listed the peacock as an emoji candidate for 2017. To me, this felt truly magical, but Irene always had confidence we could succeed together. Her favorite emoji happens to be the unicorn because she believes in magic.

So while I am so lucky to have met a creative colleague in Irene Cho I cherish our friendship which deepened through meals and conversations… We ate burgers and fries late in the evening while working on the emoji proposal. Irene’s son, Ethan, a hilarious 11-year-old, cracked me up with dad jokes that were printed on the back of the menu. I know he gets his sense of humor from his mother, who I got to know better in this short time.

I learned that Irene loved going to Burma and she was very connected to the restaurant owners. It was almost like she was an honorary Burmese citizen despite being a Korean-American. She was born and grew up in North Carolina, spent her high school years in Korea, and returned to the US for college and her adult life. Before Irene joined Burma Superstar, she worked for the Sundance Film Festival and DreamWorks. She possessed many professional talents with her experience as a publicist and a producer for many indie films. She was also a radio show and podcast producer and host, advocating for Asian-American voices and stories.

Over the next few months, we tried to get together for a post-Emojicon reunion, but we were both busy working and traveling. Sadly, the last time we spoke was via email in July 2017 before one of my trips.

On November 12, 2017, I found myself jet lagged after returning to San Francisco after a long flight from Berlin. Not long after my arrival, a notification from my phone calendar caught my attention: Annual International Tea Festival at the SF Ferry Building. “That’s weird, I didn’t recall ever signing up for this event,” I thought, “May be someone on Facebook invited me. I love tea, and perhaps those varieties of tea will be helpful for my jet lag. I should go!” I clicked on the Eventbrite link: the tickets were sold out. “It’s not far away, I should just walk there and perhaps I can get an onsite ticket,” I thought to myself again. Thus I went.

Indeed, there were people outside selling last-minute tickets. I got my ticket and experienced many different tea products from various vendors, filling the entire floor.

At the end of the hallway, I saw a Burma Superstar booth. “How does Burma Superstar have anything to do with the Tea festival?” I thought to myself, “Oh, the famous tea-leaf salad! Oh my gosh, Irene must be here! It would be so great to see her!”

I quickly made my way to the booth. There were many people, but I couldn’t find Irene. I turned to a person at the booth: “Excuse me, I am looking for Irene Cho.”

“You know Irene?” He said with a bit of surprise and sadness, “I’m Irene’s husband. I am really sorry, but Irene passed away a few months ago in August.”

I stood there with utter disbelief and shock.

Irene, my beautiful, vibrant, and full-of-life Korean-American sister, was no longer here. She was only 46. She was still so young.

I learned from Irene’s husband that Irene had died suddenly from a stroke caused by moyamoya disease, a condition she’d had for some time. Her death came as a shock to her family and friends as she was getting ready to travel to Burma. I expressed my condolences to her husband and asked how their son was doing. We shed tears and I left the Ferry Building. In the years after, I had not been able to get over the fact that Irene left the world. We spent such a short amount of time together — altogether less than 3 days, and yet, her optimism, generosity, kindness, tenacity and creativity, left a huge impact on me.

I always hoped that one day I could share Irene’s story to the world. But I didn’t know where to start.

Fast-forward to early March this year when two BBC reporters, Vivienne Nunis and Sarah Treanor, came to San Francisco from London. They were working diligently on … an emoji documentary series! I was excited to talk about 🦚emoji in the heart of San Francisco Chinatown. And finally, I was able to share my experience with Irene. They asked me if I could contact Irene’s family and friends for the interview. I was not connected to her family but through social media, I found one of Irene’s close friends, Claire Chen-Carter, a Creative Director who lives in the Bay Area, who then connected Vivienne and Sarah to American actor and former Miss Universe Brook Lee, Irene’s former roommate and friend.

The Documentary - Two smiley faces: Episode five - BBC Sounds

Irene’s story on BBC starts 17:35, by Vivienne Nunis and Sarah Treanor

Brook’s words in the interview brought me to tears:

“Irene was ahead of her time. When I met her, Asia hadn’t really been something that was on Hollywood’s radar yet. She was one of the first pioneers to sit down with the people at DreamWorks and explain to them what an untapped market, and potential in Korea, especially in Asia.”

Brook had no idea that Irene was behind the peacock emoji, living in her own phone.

“You know, there’s always a little bit of sadness because the world had to catch up with Irene: Parasite just won the Oscar last year, and now all these years later she (Irene) is not here to see this. She could have been able to sit here with everybody and say: ‘I told you so, I told you so.’ It’s another sort of wave, I guess from heaven of hers, it’s like: ‘Hey, I am still here. It is finally coming to fruition. And not even death can stop me!’ It’s not surprising. It’s something that’s important. Representation is something that she was always hugely proponent of. Things that matter, everyday things that will help you see that you’re being seen matter.”

I finally got the chance to hear this episode on July 31, 2021. A few days later, Irene’s friend Claire was kind enough to drive us to visit Irene’s gravesite in the East Bay. Just like it says on her epitaph: “Irene Cho, she touched the lives of everyone she met.”

For more than three years, I thought that the loss of Irene left a hole in my heart. Every time I saw our peacock emoji, I felt the pain in my heart as I refused to accept the fact that she was gone. But today, as I was reading her story from Vivienne and Sarah on BBC, I was hearing every sentence her friend Brook described her, and as I was on the phone with Claire and Jennifer, we discussed and edited this tribute to her. I finally realized Irene was never gone. She lives on in our hearts.

The peacock has been recognized as the “Phoenix on earth” — She rises from the ashes to recreate.

Thank you, Irene, for giving us the 🦚 peacock emoji.

And thank you, for allowing me to share my human experience with you.

✨🦚✨

This morning, the designer behind the brand new 🫓 ‘flatbread emoji’ (arepas), Lumen Bigott and I connected over Twitter, after hearing each other’s emoji design story from “The Power of Food Emoji” by Emily Thomas on BBC Food Chain, which was released yesterday.

Lumen is originally from Venezuela and now works at Airbnb San Francisco as a designer. Last night, I listened to this heart-warming story of how she and Sebastian Delmont found each other via Twitter and co-authored the 🫓 arepas emoji last year. They are both Venezuelans who live in different parts of the US. Even though they have never met each other in person, yet the quest of 🫓 arepas emoji brought them together. Their story on 🫓 arepas emoji was the first part of the podcast, and my 🥟🥡🥠🥢 🧋 emojis was the second part. Even though the same journalist interviewed three of us, we did our recording separately, so listening to their arepas emoji adventure was the first time I learn about their life stories.

Their story resonated with me a lot and notably when she says:

“When you leave a country, it is super hard. Anything that you do to give back (to people from that country/culture), it’s incredible. It makes a huge difference.”

When I heard this, I started to tear up: I was born and raised in Shanghai, China. I left my entire family in China for school in Sydney, Australia, in 2002. In 2007, one of my art pieces “Lifting a Dreamer,” got used by Twitter as its service overcapacity page image between 2008 and 2013.

tbt pic.twitter.com/xuU2WLshTl

Little did I know, this illustration would be seen by millions of people and inspired thousands of creative works from sculptures and cupcakes, beer label contests and fine art, to LEGO versions and real tattoos… the internet affectionately called it the Twitter “Fail Whale”.

It might be one of the earliest technology error pages integrated with art which was appreciated by its users. WIRED Magazine even called it “a pop culture icon for the Web 2.0 crowd”. Since then, many tech companies have started to have their own “Fail Whale Page” artworks, to delight the users and humanize the tech and compensate for the technical difficulties.

In late 2008, hundreds of internet users voted for me on Twitter, which made me a winner of the first Shorty Awards in Design. This recognition physically lured me into the United States for the first time in my life in February 2009.

On my way back to Sydney from New York, I decided to stop by in the San Francisco Bay Area for three days, to meet up with some of the very people who voted for me in person. Before that, I didn’t even know where Silicon Valley was located. During my short visit, I made many friends; many of whom were startup founders, who later became my clients for branding and design.

This was last night 10 years ago. I left my heart in San Francisco. https://t.co/rgEE3DkIJa

Since then, I was enamored by the optimistic and innovative spirit in the Bay Area. While working with many startups in Sydney remotely, I have heard the calling to move to San Francisco and the Bay Area physically, to bridge the gap between Art and Technology in person.

But I have tried to resist that calling many times, not only because I had to give up my friends, colleagues, and network — these were relationships I spent more than a decade on building in Sydney. I also had to leave my parents, who don’t speak much English back then. They had moved all the way from China to Australia to be with me, as I was their only child. Moving to San Francisco and leaving my parents and friends in Sydney, and my grandma and relatives in Shanghai, was possibly one of the hardest decisions I had made in my life.

I am forever grateful that my family gave me the blessing to follow my calling and take a leap of faith to move to San Francisco in 2015. It has been an incredible journey for me in the past 5 years: from being the creative director at 500 Startups, using art and design helping hundreds of startups raise millions; speaking about Cross-Cultural Design at Adobe MAX and SXSW for thousands of global audiences; to creating 🥟🥡🥠🥢 🧋 food emojis now used by billions of people.

I am grateful for having these experiences and serving the global community with all the work I do. Still, fear and doubts would creep in, from time to time, especially towards Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday season. I don’t know when I would be able to with my family again, especially my 90-year-old grandma. At the same time, I had to stay sane and work on my mission alone in San Francisco during a global pandemic, missing my family every day from thousands of miles away. Sometimes, part of me would question whether I am on the right path, whether I will be ok, whether all the sacrifice is worth it.

Yet, a magical moment like this morning made me feel hopeful and assured: Right after Lumen befriended me on Twitter and wrote to me: OMG we were meant to be connected!

I then realized we had already connected 12 years ago, and neither of us knew this until today!

It has been 10 years since my art piece "Lifting a Dreamer" became the Twitter Fail Whale, a symbol as @Twitter's service outrage during 2008-2013. It has inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of funny, clever & amusing homages and take-offs from users globally. Here are a few: pic.twitter.com/o3I2n6IfAQ

Two years ago, I tweeted a GIF animation to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Twitter Fail Whale. Since it has inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of funny, creative and amusing homages and take-offs from users globally, that GIF includes 25 of my favorite global fan art pieces, with each author’s name and country, from Japan 🇯🇵 to Australia 🇦🇺; Denmark 🇩🇰 to Brazil 🇧🇷, Singapore 🇸🇬 to United States 🇺🇸. One of them is: Lumen Bigott from Venezuela 🇻🇪 !

It is moments like this that make it all worthwhile. I realized that we are never really alone:

We are here to remember and re-member: when we remember our core purpose, we will re-member and re-connect with our like-minded kindred spirits — — that, is when, we are home.

For all you dreamers and doers:

Home is where the flatbread 🫓 is.

Home is where the dumpling 🥟 is.

Home is where your heart ❤️ is.

Listen to our Story “The Power of Food Emoji” on BBC Food Chain:

• The Story of the ‘flatbread emoji’ 🫓 starts at 0:16
• The Story of the 🥟🥡🥠🥢 and 🧋 emojis starts at 14:33

10 years today, Conan O’Brien premiered his new show CONAN on TBS, and debuted this art piece “Conan O’Brien Pale Whale” I created for the new Team Coco website & its Twitter page.

There was a miraculous backstory of why this project means a lot to me:

In January 2010, I was still a young artist living in Sydney Australia. I was going through a lot of challenges and struggles. Things were not working out the way as I expected. I was feeling pressured, uninspired, and was not able to find any inspiration to create new artworks for months. The only things that gave me joy was watching recommended comedy episodes on YouTube. One video that caught my eye was an episode of Taiwanese 3D animated global news, featuring a U.S. talk show host who was being treated unfairly by a large TV network which he worked for more than 20 years, his name is Conan O’Brien. Before that, I had never known anything about Conan, as I have only spent time in China, Australia and the UK — and was not familiar with the US Television network.

But I felt very related to Conan, as I was experiencing an isomorphic situation. I was curious to find out what he would say to his fans on his Last Show on NBC. “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you are kind, amazing things will happen!” I vividly remembered I found myself in tears as I heard this. It was the exact message I needed to hear. And it helped me restore my faith. I followed his advice to “Work Hard and Be Kind” and amazing things in deed happened:

Seven months later, completely out of the blue, I got an email titled “TBS…CONAN O’BRIEN” — it was from Turner Broadcasting System’s marketing team Ramon Cortes and James Wilcox, who invited me to create a custom Conan O’Brien “Fail Whale” to be featured on Twitter and his website for his new show debuting on November 8th, 2020. By then, after watching Conan’s shows for months, I was already a hug fan! This was a dream project for me.

I worked with TeamCoco in LA and the TBS team in Atlanta entirely virtually on this project, as I was still living in Sydney at that time. A few months later, I was so grateful and happy to see my artwork finally being debuted on his website and Twitter.

Thanks to @YiyingLu, I can finally come clean about my terrible whale riding addiction: http://bit.ly/cbaajJ #conanpalewhale #conanreturns

In December 2010, I had my first ever art show in San Francisco. On my way back to Sydney, I decided to have a layover in LA to meet Conan in person. My wonderful San Franciscan friends Brian and Cheryl were kind enough to drive me from SF to LA, and we met Conan and his Team in person.

Thank you, Conan and the entire Team Coco, for decades of laughter and showing me the true testimony: “If you work really hard and you are kind, amazing things will happen!”

Happy 10th Anniversary, Team Coco! 🧡🤍🐋

Meet The Twitter Fail Whale Artist!

Today is 24 September, the World Gorilla Day 🦍🎉. It is a day to take action in the conservation efforts to protect gorillas in the wild.

I want to celebrate this special day by sharing one art piece I created a few years ago: Robin Williams & Gorilla Koko.

I initially created this art piece back in 2014, when I encountered this beautiful video of a gorilla named Koko tickling the great Robin Williams.

While this video’s quality is a little dated, it is a must-watch, and it will brighten up your day. Not only is the legendary actor and comedian Robin Williams paling around with Koko, a gorilla who is fluent in American Sign Language, but what these two interact with each other will melt your heart.

At one point, right after Koko takes off and wears Williams’ eyeglasses, she begins to go through his pockets and steals his wallet! Then, suddenly, Koko starts signing “tickle” to Williams. This sweet gorilla wants nothing more than to get tickled by the great Robin Williams. Of course, Robin obliged and then cuteness ensued.

I wanted to capture this moment by creating this art piece, not only as a tribute to Robin, who is one of my favorite comedians and actors, but also a tribute to love between humans and nature.

The symbol of Yin and Yang inspired the composition. I was interested in showing that Robin and Koko (Human and Nature) are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world and give rise to each other as they interrelate with one another.

They are hugging each other and tickling each other in the art, and their forms grouped as the shape of a heart.

🦍❤️

A Tale of two cities: In memory of Mr. James Fang — Chair of the San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee

Yesterday morning, I was saddened and shocked to learn that Jame Fang, Chair of the San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee, passed away on Friday.

I still vividly remember when we met at the US-China Relationship Summit in San Francisco last year, where James was the host of the event. His dedication towards building the US-China friendship and exchange, advocating communication, understanding, and mutual respect, for a forward US-China relationship, resonated with me.

Since then, I got to know a bit more about James through work, while he encouraged me to create art pieces to celebrate the 40th-Anniversary celebration between San Francisco and Shanghai Sister Cities in 2020. James started this initiative 40 years ago in San Francisco, as he has a special bond with both cities: He was a Chinese-American born and raised in San Francisco, both his father and wife were born and raised in Shanghai. One of his major life purposes was being a bridge between these two cities, and the two nations — the US and China. He believed that my art could capture both cities’ spirits and bring people together to celebrate their unity.

To inspire me, James gifted me a book from the 30th-Anniversary of San Francisco and Shanghai Sister Cities. From which, I learned a lot of history between these two beautiful cities that are both dear to my heart. I still remember when I saw the cover for the first time, it brought me to tears: My hometown, Shanghai, in the bottom, and a place called home, San Francisco, on the top.

I have been fortunate enough to get to know him and his family a little bit more. I enjoyed hearing his childhood growing up in San Francisco as a Chinese-American, his memory of his favorite places to visit from my hometown Shanghai, and those loving anecdotes between him and wife Daphne, who was born in Shanghai. When he showed off the flower arrangement his wife made for her in his office or recalling his mother’s favorite animal, he laughed like a little kid.

With James’ encouragement, I created these new art pieces below:

1. China — California: 2nd & 5th Largest Economies in the World, inspired by the Great Seal of California.

2. 40th-Anniversary Logo of San Francisco and Shanghai Sister Cities: The Phoenix & Magnolia Flower (Inspired by Symbols of the City of San Francisco & Shanghai).

I created the above designs as part of the 40th-Anniversary of San Francisco and Shanghai Sister Cities’ cultural exchange campaign art. They were about to be applied to campaign collaterals such as posters, scarves, T-shirts, bags, and printed books. I was looking forward to seeing my design being worn by delegates from California to Shanghai, and late 2020 for the Chinese delegates to California to strengthen the economic and cultural exchange between people in both nations. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, these events were canceled, and the artworks I have created, with James’ kind encouragement and support, never got the chance to be published, until today.

Today, I would like to finally share these art pieces I spent months creating, with the world, in memory of James Fang:

Thank you, James, for your devotion to bridging the gap between the two nations. Thank you for your guidance and inspiration. Thank you for believing in me and letting me discover the higher purpose of my being, and allowing me to realize why I was born in Shanghai and eventually moved to San Francisco.

Even though we know each other rather briefly in person, your presence and work profoundly impacted me. You have brought out this new realization in me:

I moved to San Francisco 5 years ago from Sydney on a mission to bridge the gap between art and tech, knowing that I can contribute to the tech community as an artist, but then over time, I realized there is a bigger mission. After meeting James, it got intensified:

To bridge the gap between China and the US, Asia and the rest of the world,

or rather,

the East and the West.

Thank you, James, you will be missed. And your dedication and work towards building the US-China friendship and exchange, advocating communication, understanding, and mutual respect, will be carried forward. Rest in peace.

**********************

昨天上午，获悉旧金山-上海姐妹城市委员会主席方以伟James Fang先生于上周五去世，我深感悲痛。

我还清楚地记得，第一次在去年在旧金山举行的中美关系峰会上认识James。他是那次活动的主持人。James对建立中美友谊和交流，倡导沟通、理解和相互尊重，促进中美关系向前发展的愿望和前景，使我深有同感。

自此，我在设计创作促进中美关系的艺术作品的同时，对James有了更深的了解。他鼓励我为2020年旧金山和上海姐妹城市40周年庆典创作一些艺术作品。40年前，James在旧金山发起了这一倡议，由于他对上海和旧金山两座城市特别的亲情。他是在旧金山土生土长的华裔，而他的父亲和妻子都在上海出生长大。他毕生的贡献之一就是成为这两个城市，以及中美两个国家之间的桥梁。他深信，我的艺术作品可以捕捉到这两个城市的精神，并将人们聚集一堂，共同携手远航。

为了给我更多创作灵感，James赠予我一本《旧金山和上海姐妹城市30周年纪念册》。从中，我了解到这两个美丽的城市之间的源远流长的历史和友谊，如获至宝。还记得我第一次看到此书的封面时，不由得潸然泪下：书的下方是我的出生长大，魂牵梦萦的家乡 — — 上海，而书上方是我现在的所在地， 另一个难以割舍的家乡 — — 旧金山。

我有幸对James及其家人有了更多的了解：听他讲述作为一个华裔美国人在旧金山长大的童年，和他对父亲及妻子的家乡上海的美好回忆。当他在办公室里得意地展示妻子为他亲自做的插花作品时，或是谈及他母亲最喜爱的小动物时，每次都笑得合不拢嘴，开心得像个小孩子。

James鼓励我创作了下面这些标志性的艺术作品。

中国-加州：世界第二和第五大经济体，灵感来自加州大印。

2. 旧金山和上海40周年徽标（灵感来自旧金山的凤凰和上海的白玉兰城市标志）。

我创作了上述艺术设计作品，作为旧金山和上海姐妹城市40周年文化交流活动的标志。它们原本会被运用到40周年庆典的广告宣传品上：海报、围巾、T恤、包和印刷书籍。我也非常期待看到我的设计能随同加州代表赴上海交流，2020年底，中国代表会来到加州，也能穿上我的设计，加强两国人民的经济和文化交流。但遗憾的是，由于COVID-19新冠病毒的原因，这些活动均被取消，因此我也一直没能够将这些注入大量心血，也得到James指点的作品，公诸于世。

今天，我决定大家分享这些我花了数月时间创作的艺术作品，借以纪念James Fang方以伟先生。

感谢您，James，谢谢您为中美友好作出的努力。感谢您给予我的信任与启发。尽管我们彼此认识的时间相当短暂，然而您的工作使我意识到我出生于上海，来到旧金山的深层使命：

5年前，我从澳大利亚悉尼搬赴旧金山，我原以为我的使命是在艺术和科技之间架起一座桥梁。我意识到，作为一名设计师，我能用创意为科技界做出贡献。但随着时间的推移，我意识到了自己肩负着一个更大的使命。遇到James之后，就更加坚定了这个想法：

为中国和美国，亚洲和世界其他地区之间的交流和发展架起更多的桥梁。

或者说，

架起更多东方和西方之间的桥梁。

感谢您，James。您的工作将被发扬光大。愿您安息。

Celebrating International Clouded Leopard Day, Biological Diversity, and My Upcoming Children’s Book Project with Adobe Creative Community Fund

Today is August 4, the annual International Clouded Leopard Day! The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of clouded leopards and their status in the wild. Many people have never heard of a clouded leopard and have no idea of the threats facing them.

To celebrate this International Clouded Leopard Day and biological diversity, I am delighted to announce I will be launching my “The Very Hungry Red Panda” children’s book project, with the support from the Adobe Creative Residency Community Fund. This children’s book is a journey about an endangered red panda who eats its way through the world, meeting other animal friends and trying food that is unique to their countries. It is a celebration of food, animals, and art, promoting biological diversity, cultural diversity, and belonging.

This Clouded Leopard I have developed will become the very first friend of my creation the Very Hungry Red Panda.

In addition to The Red Panda, the boba tea emoji I designed will be available on people’s phones in Q4 2020.

I was born and raised in Shanghai China, educated in Sydney, Australia & London UK, and my launching point of creating the Twitter Fail Whale landed me in San Francisco, where I continued to connect the worlds of technology and art.

Over the last ten years, I created visual artworks from the Dumpling 🥟🥡🥠🥢 🧋 Emoji, to Disney Shanghai’s Mickey Mouse to Conan O’Brien’s Pale Whale. With all of these experiences I’ve accomplished, I have always wanted to take the next step and use the creativity I’ve harnessed to create my own children’s book, drawing inspiration from both world culture and nature.

On May 21, 2019, the World Day for Cultural Diversity and May 22, 2019, the International Day for Biological Diversity, I debuted my The Very Hungry Red Panda as the campaign art for a volunteer-based community event “Asian Night Market” led by the Airbnb Asian Employee Resource group. This event was created to celebrate the Asian Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month and to promote culture and belonging. At the event, over 800 patrons connected with local API vendors, performers, and small businesses, such as singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, food vendors, and so on.

I chose the red panda to be the focal point of the Asian Night Market art, not only because it is cute, but also because it is endangered, as its population is fewer than 10,000 on earth. The red panda in my art represents the small businesses and artists in the Bay Area that need people’s support. In today’s technologically evolving world, I firmly believe that art is still ultimately what makes us human, that reminds us of the ephemeral experience we all have had during our time on earth, where we should celebrate the nuances of everyone’s unique and different backgrounds and cultural experiences while living harmoniously amongst all life on the earth.

At the Global Big Draw Festival in October of last year, the red panda was also the key visual of my Co-Create Design Lab: Customize Character event at Apple Union Square, where I demonstrated the newest version of Adobe Fresco drawing app on iPad — leveraging the Red Panda to be the muse for participants, inspiring them to draw their own characters. I have since spoken at other Adobe-related events including Adobe MAX 2019.

“The Very Hungry Red Panda” will build off this momentum of the events above. I not only aim to engage and inspire the creative community, but also to empower nonprofit and education organizations.

In the last seven years, I have been advocating for biodiversity and I have leveraged art prints to raise funds for non-profit organizations like The World Wildlife Foundation. I was also awarded the Award of Honor from the United Nations Biodiversity Conference 2020.

This project is made possible with generous support from Adobe Creative Residence Community Fund, a $1M Community Fund program to support creators of digital visual work.

This program will run for 12 months starting May 2020, and Adobe will be giving grants and commissioning work each month to creators around the world. The Creative Residency Community Fund is open to creators in all countries. If you are a visual creator, you can apply from here.

In the next month and a half, I will be sharing my creative process of my Very Hungry Red Panda Projects through multiple social media channels. Including the weekly release of new animal illustrations.

You can join my creative journey on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, and my website.

Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer who co-founded New York Magazine, created the iconic ‘I ❤ NY’ logo, the psychedelic Bob Dylan poster, and the Brooklyn Brewery logo, passed away yesterday at the age of 91 on his birthday, June 26, 2020.

Milton’s work has impacted generations of designers from all cultures, and resonated with audiences around the world and brought them together. His teachings have shaped countless creative people and generations yet to come. His art, passion, devotion, and impact as a design inspiration will live on forever.

I felt compelled to write this article to dedicate to the memory of Milton Glaser, who has and continues to be a huge influence and inspiration for my creative journey.

I’m forever grateful to have a rare opportunity to interview him and learn from him back in 2017, where we chatted about technology, intuition, and what really matters in life:

Q: What makes life meaningful?

The only thing that makes life meaningful is your relationships with other human beings.

That’s the only thing there is. Fame, money, and reputation is bullshit.

Your relationships with other human beings who you lived with, are the only thing that counts.

Nothing else.

Q. What’s your thought on Logic v.s. Intuition?

I don’t believe in logic.

Because logic is a small part of the experience and a small part of understanding.

The intuition is much more powerful and much more significant than human activity.

Logic is a small mischievous activity that people use to cover up what they don’t know.

Q. In the age of the rise of technology, what are your thoughts on technology and human experience?

There is no equivalent to a conversation with somebody in front of you talking to you when you actually experience the person. The cell phone cuts off that experience. It makes others object.

I read something interesting that was very moving to me not long ago, at a meeting where people were talking about expressing love, and the conversation got to someone. I think it was in Africa, who said: In our country, there’s no word for love. There’s no way of saying “I love you”.

And somebody said: So what do you say instead?

They said: “I see you”.

I suddenly got it: Merely to see the person in front of you, is as close as you’ll ever get to loving someone. Because it means you have understood and accepted what you see.

Q. What’s the most important thing to understand in our lives?

How do you understand what is real, is the question of life.

Below are some of my personal favorite iconic designs by Milton Glaser:

Above: The “I Love New York” Logo, is a tourism-campaign symbol created by Milton Glaser and first used in 1977 to promote the city and state. It is perhaps, the most widely distributed and imitated images in the world. It consists of an upper-case “I,” followed by a red heart ❤️ symbol, and then the upper-case letters “N” and “Y,” set in the rounded slab serif typeface American Typewriter.

The campaign was an enormous success, as it is an important cornerstone of graphic design history. Never before, there was such a powerful symbol that truly transformed the image of a city, created unity and belonging, as well as huge economic returns for the city.

This design piece is not only visually significant as a pop-culture icon, which inspired imitations in every corner of the globe, merchandise proclaiming “I ❤️ …” can be found wherever tourists gather. More importantly, this design has both cultural and historical significance in New York. In the 1970s, New York was going through rough times: Crime was at an all-time high, and tourism was at an all-time low. In 1977, William S. Doyle, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Commerce, hired advertising agency Wells Rich Greene to develop a tourist-friendly campaign to encourage visitors to The Big Apple. The agency soon established several central components of the campaign: a slogan (“I Love New York”), a jingle, and a television commercial highlighting Broadway theater. Yet, they did not have a logo. Enter Milton Glaser, whose prolific portfolio included a portrait of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits album, the design of New York magazine which he co-founded in 1968, and the visual identity design of the restaurant in the World Trade Center.

According to “A Brief History of the ‘I ❤️ NY’ Logo”, Glaser was recruited by the Department for Economic Development to meet with Wells Rich Greene about logo options for the New York City campaign. During the meeting, Glaser pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket with a doodle he made during a recent cab ride. On the back of an envelope, he had scribbled the logo that we know today, and after the concept hit a nerve for Wells Rich Greene, he proceeded to develop it further, stacking the characters and determining the typeface.

Glaser did the work entirely pro bono, in the name of helping the city rise again. “That’s what it should be,” he told graphic designer Chip Kidd in an interview in The Believer. “You want to do things like that, where you feel you can actually change things.”

Today, the New York State Empire State Development (ESD), New York’s chief economic development agency, holds the trademark to the “I Love New York” logo, and licenses its use. According to a 2011 British Telegraph newspaper article, official merchandise, such as t-shirts and mugs emblazoned with Glaser’s design, generates more than $30 million a year, and the ESD receives a significant portion of the profits.

The logo experienced a surge of popularity after the September 11 attacks on the city, when it created a sense of unity. During this time, many visitors to New York City following the attacks purchased and wore “I ❤️ NY” shirts to show their solidarity. Glaser even created a modified version of the logo to commemorate the 9/11 attacks, reading “I ❤️ NY More Than Ever” with a black spot on the heart to represent the World Trade Center site. The poster was printed in the New York Daily News and served as part of a fundraiser for New York charities supporting those affected by the attacks. Added text at the bottom encouraged people to “Be generous. Your city needs you. This poster is not for sale.”

Glaser thinks the fact that the logo came from New York City, which he called “the capital of the universe,” ultimately contributed to its worldwide popularity, transforming New York tourism into the flourishing industry it is today, and in my humble opinion, truly demonstrated the power of graphic design and visual communication as a medium to create community, culture and belonging.

Below: Poster of Bob Dylan with the kaleidoscope hair, for CBS records, 1966. MoMA. After suffering serious injuries in a motorcycle accident in 1966, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was rendered bedridden and rumored to be dead. To generate positive publicity for his forthcoming album, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, CBS records commissioned Milton Glaser to design a special poster to be packaged with the album. Taking inspiration from a Marcel Duchamp self-portrait, Glaser depicted Dylan in profile, his abundant curly hair rendered in saturated colors that stood out in high contrast from the white ground. The energetic design with its swirling streams of color evokes the visual effects of the psychedelic drugs that were gaining popularity amongst members of the counterculture.

Below: 2 posters inspired by a brilliant headline: “Full-Color Sound.” for Sony, 1979.

Sometimes words trigger the visual imagination in a powerful way. Milton said the 2nd image above, owes a debt to René Magritte, one of his all-time favorite sources of ideas.

Below: Milton Glaser’s poster teeing up the launch of New York Magazine, 1967. (My personal favorite)

Rest in Peace, Milton Glaser. We ❤️ You.

Thank you for inspiring so many of us to embrace design with an open heart.

Although you are no longer with us in the physical realm, may your thoughts, words, and spirit continue to be with us, inspire and guide us in the years to come.

I will forever treasure the memories and the lessons you gave me.

The World Is Made Better Because of You ❤️.

Things that matter in life: In loving memory of Milton Glaser (1929–2020) was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart

Back in the days when I was studying at the University of Technology Sydney as an international student, my school tuition fee was a lot higher than local students. In order to make up for the education cost, I worked in many service jobs: My very first job was waitressing in a dumpling house (this perhaps set up the foundation for me to design the dumpling 🥟 emoji). I also worked at a sushi shop, an ice cream shop, a donut house, a salad bar, and I even had a job as a door-to-door bilingual interviewer, where I knocked on doors of many neighborhoods throughout the city, asking hundreds of people to fill in questionnaires… I learned a lot from working in service jobs: it helped me to be humble and have more empathy for people, as I understood how hard it was to make a living.

In my 2nd year, I decided to do something relevant to the work I have created in my 1st year: I’ve made the Angelfish, Lion Fish, Sea Horse, Pineapple Fish, Sting Ray, Octopus mask designs after my visit to the Sydney Aquarium.

当我在澳大利亚读书的时候，作为国际留学生，我们的学费比当地学生要高出很多(一般是5到10倍)。 为了弥补昂贵的学费，我从事了很多服务性的工作。我的第一份工作是在饺子馆里做服务员 (这也在冥冥之中为我最终设计了饺子 🥟 表情符号奠定了坚实的基础)。 我还在寿司店，冰淇淋店，甜甜圈店，沙拉吧工作过…… 都是些与吃有关的行业。我甚至还做了一份很神奇的双语问卷调查的工作。那份工作需要我在悉尼7个不同地区，挨家挨户地敲门，和数百名双语家庭成员沟通，让他们填写问卷调查…… 现在想来，这种工作完全可以用互联网的问卷调查表来代替。服务行业虽然比较苦比较累，可是我从与人打交道的过程中学到了非常宝贵的经验：它们使我懂得了谋生的艰辛，更教会我理解和尊重别人。

在学校二年级的时候，我决定做些和设计有关的事情。 在我大学一年级时，我设计了一系列海洋生物的面具设计：神仙鱼，狮子鱼，海马，菠萝鱼，黄貂鱼和章鱼

My above designs got good school marks, yet they don’t pay my expensive tuition fee.

What if I publish or market them? I thought.

虽然我的上述设计作品在学校得到了的优秀的成绩，但他们却无法抵我下学期昂贵的学费。所以我想：那让我来试着推销自己的作品吧!

Utilizing the interpersonal skills I’ve learned from my freshman year, I was able to get a hold of the marketing department of the Aquarium. The team said they were impressed by this artwork and expressed their interest to commission me to create new designs for celebrating its 20th anniversary and creating more awareness for the public for ocean conservation.

So I created 4 more new designs: Clownfish, Shark, Dugong, and Seal and licensed to the Aquarium.

我把这些设计带到了悉尼水族馆，凭着我在大学一年级的社会工作经验中学到的人际交往能力，我很快地识了水族馆的营销部门的主要负责人。 他们都很喜欢我的作品，并决定聘请我创作4件新的海洋生物作品：鲨鱼，儒艮，海豹和小丑鱼：

These new designs were licensed and printed onto 15, 000 masks to give away to every child who visits during school holidays in 2008, to celebrate its 20th anniversary and create more awareness for marine animals. The designs made into The Sydney Sunday Telegraph newspaper and license fee helped to cover my school cost, Hooray!

悉尼水族馆把我的设计制作成15, 000个面具，赠给每个在2008年暑期来水族馆的孩子们，来庆祝水族馆成立20周年。与此同时，这个活动也提高大众对海洋生物的认识和喜爱。 这些设计荣登“悉尼星期日电讯报”首页，同时我得到的设计费用也足够地支付了我下个学期的学费。

若不是生活所迫，谁愿意把自己弄得一身才华。

This was my first Artrepreneur story.
这是我的第一个用艺术创业的故事。

“最难的事其实是果断地采取行动，剩下就是坚持。” — 阿米莉亚·埃尔哈特

This article was originally published on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-became-artrepreneur-yiying-lu/?published=t

We all experience obstacles and challenges in our lives. And we are always trying to find solutions to get unstuck. What’s fascinating is that I realized the answer to make the “hard” situation “easy”, is already within the translation of them in their Chinese Characters!

Challenges and obstacles are the “facts” of our daily lives; and so is overcoming them. Much of our energy and brainpower is dedicated to coming up with the right solutions, to free us from the mires of life’s difficult positions. Sounds exhausting? Perhaps. But what if I can show you that the secret lies not in any spark of instantaneous genius, but in the holistic way of looking at the base of the problem. And the solution is already written, in Chinese characters.

In Chinese, the translation of (characters for) “Hard” (Difficulty) is “困难”, 困 in this context means “Trapped, Stuck”, The pronunciation of 难 here is “Nán” which means “Hard, Difficult”. It also can be pronounced as “Nàn”, translates to “Adversity or Challenge”, which are the challenges we face in our life to test us. (This is the reason why In the Chinese Classic “Journey to the West” 《西游记》, the main characters in the book had to overcome 九九八十一难: “81 Challenges” to complete their journey). So the elaborated meaning of “difficult” is “Stuck in Adversity”.

So how do we get out of the adversity, then? The answer is also in the Chinese Characters:

Following the above line of thoughts, facing a difficult situation means to be trapped, or to be stuck, in a set of negative circumstances. Next, you may ask, just how do we get out of adversity? Again, the answer is already written.

The antonym of “Hard” is “Easy”. “Easy” in Chinese characters is “容易”. 容 means “Allow, Permit “, 易 means “Changes” (The character 易 in the Chinese Classic “I Ching” 《易经》also means “Changes”, thus “I Ching” translated to “Classic of Changes” or “Book of Changes”). To make things easier, to get “Un-stuck in Adversity”, we need to “Allow Changes”. This also explains the reason why sometimes we find things are difficult, perhaps it is because we have been “Resisting Change”.

I love how Simon Sinek (Author of the one of the most watched TED Talk: Start with Why) describes this in his recent interview:

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

I sort of embrace the surprise. I embrace the uncertainty. The world is uncertain... I think one of the most valuable lessons of my life is to view uncertainty as an opportunity rather than a liability." @SimonSinek on view uncertainty as an opportunity to grow #Inspiration https://t.co/Hl7OW2lsZa

“I sort of embrace the surprise. I embrace the uncertainty. The world is uncertain. So the more you try and control things, you know you’re not going to do well. There’s a Marine who told me: no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

I’ve learned to view surprises as an opportunity to grow, I’ve learned to view surprises as something that are helpful, rather than hurtful. I’ve learned to view that when the plan gets punched in the side, and to say, well, that’s an opportunity! Rather than how do I force the plan to stay on track. I think one of the most valuable lessons of my life is to view uncertainty as an opportunity rather than a liability. ”

So embrace the surprise; embrace the uncertainty. Allow Change. Things will all get easier.

我们在生活中会面临许多逆境和挑战。大家都试图寻找解决方案来脱离困境。 令人着迷的是，我意识到让“困难”情况变得“容易”的答案，竟然就在他们的中文翻译里！

挑战和障碍在我们的日常生活是常有的事。 我们的大部分精力和智慧都致力于如何来克服障碍，摆脱困境。 听起来是不是很精疲力竭？ 但是如果我能告诉你这个秘密并不在于任何瞬间天才的火花，而是以整体的方式来看待问题的基础。 解决方案已经在汉字中：

“Difficult”的中文翻译是“困难”，“困”是“围困”的困，表示陷在艰难痛苦或无法摆脱的环境中。这里难的发音是“Nán”，是“艰难，困难”的难。 它也可以发音为“Nàn”，比如“灾难”或“苦难”的难，翻译为“逆境或挑战”，我们在生活会中之所以会面临的逆境和挑战，大概是上天在测试我们的应变能力吧 — — 你看，就是为什么在中国经典“西游记”“西游记”中，书中的主要人物不得不克服九九八十一难“Nàn”，才可以取得真经）。 由此可见，“困难”的详细解释便是是“陷入逆境”。

按照上述思路，面对困难的情况意味着在一系列负面情况下陷入困境或陷入困境。 接下来你可能会问，那么我们如何摆脱逆境呢？ 同样，答案也在汉字中:

“Difficult” (困难) 的反义词是“Easy”。“Easy”中文是“容易”。“容”是“容许”的容，易是“变易”的易（中国的传统经典之一“易经”的“易”也意味着“不断的变化”，因此“易经”翻译为“不断变化的经文”)。想要在复杂的世界里活得更容易，我们需要“容许变易的到来” — — 拥抱和适应变化 。这同时解释了，有时我们之所以会觉得有些事很“困难”，从某种意义上来说是因为我们“抗拒变化”。

我非常赞同Simon Sinek（最受瞩目的TED演讲之一的作者：从为什么开始）在他最近的一次采访中对“拥抱和适应不确定”的感言：

“我开始慢慢去接受意料之外的情况，去拥抱不确定性。 这个世界本身便充满了不确定性。 所以你尝试去控制的东西越多，就越难把事情做好。 有一位海军陆战队员告诉我：“没有任何计划在与敌人接触后会幸存下来”。

我学会了将意料之外的情况视为成长的机会，我学会了将他们视为有用，而非有害的机会。 我学会了当我原有的计划被打到一边时，对自己说，好吧，这是一个新的机会！而不是去想如何强迫计划保持原来的我想象中的情形。 我认为我生命中最有价值的教训之一就是将不确定性视为机会而非负担。

所以拥抱不确定性。 允许改变。 事情就会变得越来越容易。

A Chinese New Year + Valentine’s Day Epiphany with the Dumpling 🥟 Emoji

新年快乐, 情人节快乐！Happy Chinese New Year & Happy Valentine’s Day!

What do these two holidays have to do with each other this year? The answer is below.

Dumplings (jiǎozi 饺子 in Mandarin) are traditionally a must-eat food during the Chinese New Year. Families wrap them up and eat them as the clock strikes midnight. This is because the form of the dumplings resembles “元宝” (YuanBao or Sycee), an old Chinese currency consisting of nuggets of gold or silver. By wrapping dumplings, you are wrapping fortune. The dumpling has thus become a symbol of prosperity and wealth for the new year.

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

Happy Chinese New Year! The reason we eat dumpling or jiǎozi (饺子) during #CNY because they resemble "元宝" (Sycee or YuanBao), a form of old #Chinese currency that's nuggets of gold or silver. The similarly shaped 🥟 has become a symbol of prosperity & wealth for the #newyear.

In 2016, I created the artwork for the official dumpling 🥟, Chopsticks 🥢, fortune cookie 🥠, and Takeout Box 🥡 emojis. Together with the effort from Jennifer 8. Lee, we made these emojis available for billions of keyboards. I also co-founded Emojination, a community to make emoji approval an inclusive and representative process, with Jennifer 8. Lee & Jeanne Brooks.

People often joke around and ask me whether designing emojis is my job, and my answer is:

“It is not my job, it’s a calling.”

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

Creating the dumpling emoji is not my job, it's my calling..." The Story of How I created the Dumpling 🥟 Emoji (Part I). https://t.co/QFj9G9TNAt

Joking aside, I do feel that if designing the dumpling emoji is like giving people a fish, I am more interested in teaching people how to fish — I intend to make other people passionate about design & creativity. Design connects us to the world. Design research has expanded my mind, and I’ve started to see connections and everything seems to come together, full circle. Recently, my design research has exposed a truly mystical meaning for me about the cultural symbols of this time of year.

Over the last five years, I have been traveling around the world, speaking about the topic of “Designing Across Cultures.” Through these talks, I share my experiences with cross-cultural branding, the design process of creating the Twitter Fail Whale 🐳 and the Dumpling Emoji 🥟, localization tactics for brands like Disney Shanghai, Google, 500 Startups’ objectives towards their Korean and Indian audiences, and so on.

Last week, while I was editing and uploading my design talks to my YouTube Channel, I had an epiphany:

When I was designing a bilingual logo (English and Chinese) for the Australian real estate company Home 789, I faced two major creative challenges: 1. Integrate the Chinese character of “Home” — “家” with numbers “789”; 2. Redesign the radical “宀” into an organic form.

As I was editing the above video, I remembered my discovery that the Chinese character of “Home” 家, consists of two pictorial components: the upper part “宀” (mián) symbolizing the roof, and lower part “豕” (shǐ) meaning pig. In ancient China, pigs were raised indoors to keep them safe. Pigs in the house then became associated with a bountiful home.

February 5th marks the start of the year of the Pig 🐷, I posted the snip of my talk on Twitter, as a New Year message to celebrate the Year of the Pig.

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

The Chinese character of "Home" is 家 (jiā). It has 2 pictorial components: The upper part 宀 symbolizing the roof, the lower part 豕 meaning pig. In ancient China, pigs were raised indoors to keep them safe. 🐷 in the house then became associated with a bountiful home. #CNY2019 https://t.co/ugWclrALZl

As I continued editing this video, ideas began to percolate.

During my redesign the roof radical “宀” into an organic form, I rediscovered that the name of 宀 is 宝盖头 (bǎo ɡài tóu), which literally translates to “Treasure (宝) Canopy (盖头)” (or according to Google Translator “Treasure Hijab”). The “Treasure” 宝 is the same character from the ancient Chinese currency “元宝” (YuanBao or Sycee), the “Inaugural Treasures”, which is also what the dumpling has come to signify, as mentioned earlier.

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

During my design process, I realized the name of 宀 is called 宝盖头, which literally translated to "Treasure (宝) Canopy / Hijab (盖头)". The "Treasure" 宝 is the same character from the ancient Chinese currency "元宝" (YuanBao), which is also the form of 🥟 has come to signify! https://t.co/5PTbIQEBdt

When you think about the word and concept of “home” in Chinese characters, it literally is like a dumpling: a roof made of treasure, protecting the pig inside the home. Making this year, 2019, the Year of the Pig, even more meaningful.

Dumpling 🥟 + Year of Pig 🐷= Home 🏠家

When you come to think of it, the notion of Home is where we find safety, comfort, and belonging. That is probably the reason why people say “Home is where the heart ❤️ is.”

On the topic of the heart, a couple of days ago, with Valentine’s Day approaching, I received a box of chocolate from my lovely friend Victoria Taylor.

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

Chocolates are indeed food for the Soul! Thank you @happysquid for such a sweet surprise & delight during the Chinese New Year & Valentine's week! 🙌@MLConfections 🧧🐷🍫❤️.

Delighted, I tweeted “Chocolates are indeed food for the Soul!”, which reminded me one of my favorite tales about love: “Cupid and Psyche” (or “Eros and Psyche”) from the ‘Metamorphoses’ (a.k.a. ‘The Golden Ass’) by Apuleius, a 2nd century AD novelist, and rhetorician. You can read the longer version here, here and here.

In this story, Psyche is a princess so beautiful that the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) becomes jealous. In revenge, she instructs her son Cupid (Eros) to make her fall in love with a hideous monster; but instead, he falls in love with her himself. He becomes her unseen husband, visiting her only at night. Psyche disobeys his orders not to attempt to look at him, and in doing so she loses him. In her search for him, she undertakes a series of cruel and difficult tasks set by Venus in the hope of winning him back. Cupid can eventually no longer bear to witness her suffering or to be apart from her and pleads their cause to the gods. Psyche becomes an immortal and the lovers are married in heaven.

Psyche (psych•ee), whose name means “soul”. Psyche is the soul; Cupid is the heart. When they come together, they are forming LOVE, which is what home represents.

Home is where your heart and soul are together.

Heart ❤️+ Soul ✨= Love 💖= Home 🏠家

You might have heard the idiom: “Go Big or Go Home” which is a phrase said to come out of Southern California in the latter part of the 20th century as a sales slogan or sports. It is an exhortation to go all-out, to put all of one’s effort into an enterprise, to experience something to its fullest, to be extravagant.

In Silicon Valley, there are global success stories that apparently became household names overnight — from Uber to Airbnb, Dropbox to Pinterest. As much as we admire the winners on the pedestal who are “Going Big”, we tend to forget the value of “Home”, the things & people we love and enjoy — — the result is burning out, founder depression, and the lost of art and culture in the city…

Now here come more questions:

Why do we have to choose between either “Go Big” or “Go Home”? Why are they mutually exclusive?

Most importantly, what is the point of you “Going Big” if you can no longer “Go Home?”

You see, it is not sustainable to “Go Big” without the sense of “Home”. In order to authentically “going big” and keep the success, you need to incorporate who you are at your core.

Anything manifested out there, needs to be present within.

So, is there any way to have it all? The LOVE, the heart, the soul; to Go Big and Go Home at the same time?

The answer is YES!

How? You might ask.

Well, according to Forbes, if you can find your Ikigai you can Transform Your Outlook On Life And Business! That’s like totally Go Big and Go Home at the same time.

What’s an Ikigai, you asked? Well, Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced “eek-key-guy”) is, above all else, a lifestyle that strives to balance the spiritual with the practical. It is the Japanese secret to a long and happy life which might just help you live a more fulfilling life!

Ikigai is seen as the convergence of four primary elements:

• What you love (your passion)
• What the world needs (your mission)
• What you are good at (your vocation)
• What you can get paid for (your profession)

Apparently, discovering your own Ikigai is said to bring fulfillment, happiness and make you live longer.

So I took a long, hard look into the concept and truly asked myself these 4 questions:

1. What do I love?
2. What am I good at?
3. What can I be paid for now — or something that could transform into my future hustle?
4. What does the world need?

When I converge all my answers together, Eureka! I have discovered my Ikigai.

It was so straightforward and obvious, which makes me see we can really have it all — — Be in love in Year of Pig, Go Big and Go Home!

Since I have a generous soul, I am happy to share my transformative discovery of how I found my Ikigai — — fully animated!

In all seriousness…

You see, the Dumpling is not just a fixture in Chinese cuisine, it is universal: Khinkali 🇬🇪, Jiaozi 🇨🇳, Gyoza 🇯🇵, Mandu 🇰🇷, Ravioli 🇮🇹, Pierogi 🇵🇱, Pelmeni 🇷🇺, Momos 🇳🇵, Maultaschen 🇩🇪… during my design research, one of the most common kinds of dumplings in China is 馄饨, its English is Wonton (which is based on its Cantonese pronunciation), its Chinese Mandarin pronunciation is Hun Dun. What blows my mind is that I realized that the Chinese character of wonton is 馄饨, which rooted from 混沌, meaning primordial chaos. No joke, these things are related. 🤯! During Ming dynasty (1368–1644) The “Classic of Mountains and Seas” 《山海经》, the Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and myth, has an illustrated version of the “Wonton” 混沌 the “Primordial Chaos”—— it has four wings, six legs, no face, and apparently, good at singing and dancing.

Here is the unspoken truth through my design research: The reason why dumplings are so universal, if you think about it — — it’s primordial chaos in your mouth: You don’t know what’s inside until you take a bite. It’s like Schrödinger’s cat: You don’t know what’s inside a dumpling unless you take a bite of it, then you can find out whether it is chicken, or vegetarian, or pork, or seafood… So every single time when you eat a dumpling, metaphorically you’re opening up a new universe.

Yiying Lu 🐳 🥟 陆怡颖 on Twitter

The Secret Behind the Dumpling 🥟 Finally Revealed! 🤯 https://t.co/nbDgXt3lzx

Happy Chinese New Year & Happy Valentine’s Day!

“When you feel what you love, And love what you do. Nothing can stop us….For life is made for you to mold it. And love is life to be lived…wishes are served on a silver plate…” Tom Oliver — Free Your Mind

So take a bite of the dumpling 🥟, be in love in Year of Pig, Go Big and Go Home!

And lastly, the Dumpling emoji 🥟 has been nominated as a finalist of Shorty Awards Emoji of the Year. To appreciate and support this delicious primordial chaos, you can vote below:

🥟 dumpling - The Shorty Awards

Many thanks to my friends and family for their wonderful feedback on this post, particularly: Harry McCracken, Kristy Lin Billuni, Matthew Rowett, Greg Galant, Alex Feerst, Ken Ozeki, and Victoria Taylor.

This post is the first article of my Cross-Cultural Design Infotainment series. In future posts, I will be sharing my creative process behind the Twitter Fail Whale, Disney Shanghai Mickey Mouse to the Conan O’Brien Pale Whale, and so on.

If you’d like to be inspired, informed and entertained, please sign up my newsletter.

By the way, I have a Solo Art Show featuring 100+ of my art pieces from 2/20–6/19 in San Francisco. If you are in town, please come by!

“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life and 🥟. “ — inspired by Federico Fellini