Symbol design is an abstract concept, and learning symbol design is an extremely difficult path that tests one’s knowledge of abstraction, graphic design skills, associative skills, and lastly, divergent thinking. Creating a symbol that fits a character is a rare element in design, but the fusion of symbol and design will make the character more individual and even give the character specialness.
Symbol design starts off by looking for a reference, but that reference has to match the character’s designed personality, for example if the character is a conniving and cunning person, then its symbol cannot be dun square at first glance. Take the protagonist’s as an example, she is a regular student, but at the same time a bit rebellious for her age, and likes to have something she likes on the regular uniform. So the symbols have to be square and stable, and I chose the word name as a starting point to restructure the ancient script into three new symbols, from which I chose two to combine with the artefacts.

Since the monster was designed to be a snake and active at night, the artefacts chosen were all related to the snake’s natural enemy. An owl was chosen because it was a folkloric guardian animal during the Shang Dynasty and is very ancient. Eagles generally symbolised ancient steppe peoples and were rarely used in amulets. Dragons, on the other hand, are official creatures and cannot be used by ordinary people. Clouds, on the other hand, are ethereal and insubstantial, not very good for symbol design.

Regarding the design of the monster, in my initial thinking I wanted him to be an oversized monster – which would be full of dramatic conflict in the composition, with a human-sized protagonist against an oversized creature. So my references centred on large traditional monsters, and because the turbid half means water and lives in darkness, the monster ended up being a combination of a snake and a fish. And because the design is related to the background and light and shadow, the Dragon Palace from GUJIAN 3 became my reference, which is a shadow puppet construction of the Dragon Palace, the characters are all performed on a flat surface, but the effect of the performance is very wonderful because of the colour and design

The design of the whole city is in the mountains, the core city is located in the mountains, so I used the word up as the source of the symbol design, and at the same time used several of the overall design language favouring upwards this intention. And the artefacts of the extended design almost always follow this preference of being on the roof, overhead or growing upwards. Denotes above the baseline. Its original meaning is high, above; by extension, superior in rank or quality, preceding in order or time, and ascending from a low to a high place or advancing from here to there.