In 2017, designer Qingyu Wu designed an album cover and merchandise for The Landscape the Tropics Never Had (热带从未有过的风景) by Beijing-based band Chui Wan (吹万).
As an experimental psychedelic rock band, Chui Wan’s music consists of emotional and textural contrasts and Wu sought to convey these tensions in the album’s design. The bilingual typography contrasts the calligraphic Ogg Display, which is used for Latin text, and the sans serif FZ Lan Ting Hei S UL GB for the Chinese text.
“I wanted the design leave a space for imagination, just like Chui Wan’s music does,” Wu adds. “The design is intended to translate and represent the tracks’ ambiguous, poetic, and textural melodies, and Ogg expresses all of these temperaments. Ogg keeps the classical attitude of serifs — elegant, romantic, and meandering. At the same time, it also contains some contemporary aesthetics — odd, sharp, and loud,” Wu shares. The cover art uses “Desserts” by Li Gang (李钢) / Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing.