An eye for music

Signature Work Yet to Come, By Yung-chen Nieh, 232pp, Guangxi Normal University Press, 58 yuan

By He Jianwei

It would be no exaggeration to say Yung-chen Nieh is Taiwan’s top graphic designer.

In June, he took the new prize for Best Album Design/Packaging at the 21st Golden Melody Awards, a music award annually presented in Taiwan and known as the Chinese Grammys. Seven of the Top 10 pop albums on the Chinese market have packaging designed by Nieh.

Born in 1977 and working in graphic design for eight years, Nieh has as many as 1,000 graphic works for Chinese pop music albums, movies, performances and book covers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland.

Last year, Nieh summarized his seven-year career in graphic design in the book Signature Works Yet to Come, a collection of 14 essays and 100 samples of his work.

Its simplified Chinese version was released last Monday, and Nieh was in Beijing to talk about his life at One Way Street Bookstore.

Nieh majored in graphic design and became a contributing copywriter at Eslite Bookstore, one of the largest bookstore chains in Taiwan, after he won the store’s copywriting award in his sophomore year.

He first won recognition with the publication of his graduate work, the book Some Kidding in Reality. That prompted him to establish his studio in 2002, and since then he has been designing album covers.

Design is a career for creative tpyes. “It is not enough to have creative ideas. As a good designer, you must try everything to persuade your client to receive your ideas,” Nieh said.

Every album has some concept related to the musicians, but Nieh prefers to visualize the music. Usually he will listen to the music and the producer’s concept about the album before submitting his design.

The art of negation is a critical skill for a good designer. When his ideas clash with his client’s, he always persuades his clients to understand the meaning of his design.

Sometimes, he will give several proposals. “Clients who turn down all my proposals get sent to find another designer,” he said. “A good designer must have his or her principles.”

The international design book Musikraphics lists Nieh as one of the best 100 designers of music artwork. The book provides the selection of his innovative packaging for vinyl records and MP3s.

Nieh is a member of Type Director Club, an international creators’ organization in New York.