Nushu is the only known women’s writing system created and used exclusively by women. Girls in Jiangyong county Hunan Province, are paired as laotong by a matchmaker who is also responsible for arranging their marriages. They are isolated by their families and communicate by writing in a secret sisterly language. Nvshu script was a special communication code developed and applied by women in the remote area of Hunan Province.
I. Nushu Banner Pattern
Both in Chinese and Nushu culture, patterns are for decorative purposes. Nushu is viewed as pattern if readers do not know what meaning it is, and likewise, traditional Chinese patterns are representative. I created patterns with nvshu letter by following the four-square principles of Chinese pattern for presenting the original impression of Nushu.
II. Nushu Book
I made a visual dictionary for Nushu learners to attempt to study each character’s meaning through focusing on the layout and images. Nushu is a writing system that developed from Chinese pronunciation. Based on this and I prefer to rely on communication system, I would like to explain meaning of one word with setting each two spreads. The previous spread is from my guessed understanding based on comprehending of Chinese system; another one is to decrypt the true meaning of Nushu for readers. In the process of reading this book, readers can gather information of character by following clues from both pictures and my imagination to achieve the goals of communication.
Nushu Visual Identity
Nushu is a slender diamond shape and looks like scratch marks. In my view, this is the greatest difference from other writing system, which can be used as the main graphic figure in this project. As the project developed, my idea was to employ the slender diamonds to represent the five letters N, U, S, H, U. While the colour blue relates the identity to that of the women’s traditional costumes of Jiangyong County, the yellow offers an extreme contrast, revealing that women in an oppressive society did their best to scramble for the right they were supposed to have.
The goals I want to accomplish are:
--Design an identity system that is timeless, borderless and simple.
--Stay close to Nushu's traditional.
--Create an integrated, sustainable, and meaningful identity system.
Key words:
The only female language, Diamond shape, Letter on fans and fabric, Phonetic script.
