We recently connected with Yixin Cai and have shared our conversation below.

Yixin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

‘Second Skin’ is my final project for my master’s journey at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL. It is a symbol of my personal creation journey that I started to conduct some self-research-oriented projects in the areas that I have a strong interest in. It was also the first time that I wrote a short script based on the research and applied the narrative motion design as the outcome to share my doubts about ‘personal existence’ in the current society.

In his book ‘Symbolic Exchange and Death’, Jean Baudrillard states that visible clothing, jewellery or make-up envelop the human body like a ‘second skin. There is a freeing of an individual to establish identity through involvement in consumer cultures, so we could see ‘second skin’ as objects with embodied personal consciousness in an ultimate goal that one’s full realisation is lying in the endless construction of the social self.

If it becomes possible and open to construct ourselves, then it also becomes possible to reconstruct or construct diverse selves. This project wants to ask with the ultimate goal of self-realisation ni endless consumption, how do people maintain a sense of stability and continuity across time and space?

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a visual designer based in LA and London with work experience in the design studio, art gallery, tech and financial industries. I’m obsessed with building a consistent and playful experience for clients, users and audiences in my design service of brand design, illustration, website design, and editorial design.

During my undergraduate study in Industrial Design, with a strong interest in UI design, I finished all relevant courses early in my sophomore year and conducted self-motivated work in UI and product design while winning a national product design reward in 2018. But it only made me more obsessed with graphic and visual logic so I decided to switch the design path by finishing various projects independently as a graphic designer, including strengthening the brand image, conducting campaigns and curating an exhibition with art directors, I did not just gain more strategies for facing client needs but also found it exciting to conduct solution-oriented designs, which drove me to step into the communication design area to focus on the ability to manipulate systems and methodologies.

With the transition that design strategy is beyond an alternative, I am eager and keep applying design methodologies and practical adaption of design thinking to create solutions in innovation-oriented projects focusing on market or organisation needs, which does not just include beautiful visual outcomes, but also digital innovation, marketing impact and sustainability.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Solid basic design theories may sound very boring when a creator is full of amazing original ideas. But from a practical perspective, those theories would help creators save time and lower the possibility of attempts in vain.

For a designer, pitching a project does not mean just presenting the project, but also selling the personal traits of the designer. Learning how to communicate with various clients from distinctive backgrounds for sure will boost the designer to conduct better solutions.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

My goal for both my personal and career development is to generate something useful for the targeted clients, users and industries. I find the highlight of being a designer is that I can achieve this goal through original ideas and creation, which makes me realize my unlimited possibilities.

Being a creative designer requires me to keep evolving myself, to expose myself to the unpredictable but fabulous world and society, and to locate myself in familiar and unfamiliar subjects. It makes my life like a perpetual motion machine, whose recourse and reward are both creative thinking.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sapuri.one/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sapuricc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sapuricc/
• Other: Link for project ‘Second Skin’: https://sapuri.one/Second-Skin