MANKUN GUO IS A VISUAL DESIGNER. SHE ENJOYS EXPLORING THE COEXISTENCE OF SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY, FUNCTIONALISM AND ORNAMENTALISM.| MANKUN GUO IS A VISUAL DESIGNER. SHE ENJOYS EXPLORING THE COEXISTENCE OF SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY, FUNCTIONALISM AND ORNAMENTALISM.|
2024LIFE OF FONTTypography, Coding, Prints | Typeface as living entities capable of self-evolution.
2024TYPELFEXITypography, Coding, Web | an online software for generating typefaces.
2022RISD YEARBOOKPrints |  Yearbook as a stage for on-site performance.
2022ON THE PAST PRESENT FUTURE OF THE PASTPrints, Writing | RISD degree project exploring memory and digitized past.
2022MO&VIO SERIFTypography, Type Design, Prints | Variable type family with extensive weight and optical sizes.
2021NIKE FLYEASEInstallation, Animation | For the launch of Nike FlyEase shoes at the Nike House of Innovation in Shanghai and Paris.
2023TYPO LABYRINTHPrints |. 2024 calendar notebook as Toneking’s customer gift.
2023A LIGHT BURNS A HOLE IN THE NIGHTIllustration |  Re-interpretation of tales behind children’s drawings.
2023SSSCANNNTypography, Prints |  Experimenting with flat-bed scanner to create type forms.
2022IN-BETWEEN MIND AND WORLDAnimation, 3D Modeling |. Exploring subjectivity and Objectivity.
2022NOTHING AND AT ONCE EVERYTHINGPrints | A series of visual researches questioning the existence of color white.
2023BIOSPHEREIdentity, Web, Prints | Sustainable solutions for global production.
2021CONVEX CONCAVEIdentity, Prints | Contemporary art exhibition held in Shanghai
2023A MERE THOUGHT OF YOU BREAKS MEWriting, Prints |book that catalogues nostalgia moments
2022LAWTRADES
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Web | Web for easily accessing legal professions
ON THE PAST PRESENT FUTURE OF THE PAST

Year: 2022
Type: Personal
Category: Prints, Writing
Advisor: Paul Soulellis
Award: Graduate 360
Publication: Cargo Graphic Design
On The Past/ Present / Future of The Past invites an improvisation of memory between humans and technology. It studies how we interact with memories and how engagement has shifted in the digital realm. It is inspired by experiences with my father lacking physical documentation and the later craziness of recording everything out of amends, until I realized how the endless recording completely ruined my intimate engagement with the past. With the analysis of my past and insight research of memory itself, I took writing and visual prose as a response to what I experienced, observed, and pondered.
       The first mode, The Past, uncovers a memoir of my father and a comprehension of pure memory recall. The second mode, The Present, compares different methods of recording to see how they affect the engagement with memories. The third mode, The Future, speculates on potential issues lurking behind the perfect vision of recording everything. With all my practices，I sought to unfold a resonance space that enables a comprehension of memories, a listening of the self, and a negotiation of technologies under critical views. This, in turn, may shape our next engagement with the old days, the todays, and the tomorrows.
        This project, additionally, is an experiment with a new design approach, where words serve as a guiding basis for reflection and visuals act as a rhetorical approach to content. Visual language is like a window that empowers ideas with forms and establish an intuitive emotion. It constructs different levels of engagement that allow audiences to appreciate the surface of visual or follow its direction to enter the inner territory.

Full Process Book


Process book
A documentation of thinking process.
Full Book

MODE 1__Part 1
THE PAST_A MemoirThe first project is a memoir about my father. I traced our shared experiences during his lifetime and as an attempt at understanding how memory works. The very initial practice starts with writing. Yet the process is difficult for me as I found it hard to retrace the past in a linear order. While recalling one memory, some others could materialize out of nowhere and take up residence in my thoughts. After the struggling process, I presented those arbitrary intrusions as fragmented words and visual forms. They are printed in fabric, ready to be refolded and ravaged. Each fiddling with the cloth is deformation and reformation of prior orders.

A  Memoir

MODE 1_PART 2
THE PAST_Complete The WindowRecollection is a window that allows us to re-experience a completely different past. Colors are flowing; exagg-erated forms are complemented with sharp edges. The brain is constantly adding layers to it, compensating for the details in pursuit of complete exper-iences of the past. As an exploratory extension of the previous project, I extracted the forms of memory from the prior practice, deconstructing and reconstructing them into abstracted forms with details filled in. They form a series of windows, which are portals of not only entering my personal memories but also inviting the viewers into the territory and establishing associations. Memory is no longer described in a literal and precise words, but becomes an abstract result that invites participation, interpretations, and imagination.
MODE 2_Part 1
THE PRESENT_EverydayIt was a month-long journaling practice. Following the activity, I attempted to reflect on it and uncover a semblance of memory unity that existed in everyday life. Interestingly, I discovered that I frequently had a vivid remembrance of a daytime occurrence, and the linkage consumed a considerable portion of the review. Both sketching and writing are typically devoid of realistic representation, favoring imagination and concept dissemination. This brings to mind electronic records. Is fascinating imagination a thing of the past in the modern era?
MODE 2__PART 2
THE PRESENT_Traveling Diary: The BreakersI employed a semi-scientific experimental technique in this experiment to assess differences in recording behaviors and their effect on individual memory. I invited my friend, Zhaochong, to be involved in this experiment. We traveled to The Breakers which is the grandest of summer "cottages" in Newport, RI, and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial dominance in the region. During the trip, I asked Zhaochong to consistently take video recordings while I documented my experiences by hand-drawings. I ended up tying the recording results chronologically as two archive books in order to compare and contrast the two types of documentation. A week after the trip, my friend, Daisy, interviewed each of us independently regarding our travel memories. A following-up essay was conducted as a reflection of the experiment.
MODE 3
THE PASTIn the last chapter, I take a look at some of the problems that electronic records have the potential to cause in the near and far futures. It's possible that having too much information in our memories will work against us, rather than for us, by making it more difficult to recollect what we did in the past. The combination of dark, disordered pieces, and complex textures is meant to depict the overwhelming sense that one is being bombarded with an excessive amount of information. I have high hopes that the viewer will experience a sense of confusion as a result of this visual language and that it will lead them to think about the shifting nature of the way we interact with technology and our memories.
ARCHIVE: DESIGN, ART
INFOMANKUN GUO