Child demolishes $15K Lego statue Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.JUST WATCHEDReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH Story highlightsYoung child destroys $15,000 "Zootopia" statue at a Lego expoArtist accepted parents' apology and didn't ask to be repaidThe artwork, an intricate statue of a fox named Nick from the animated Disney film "Zootopia," took three days to create and cost more than $15,000, CCTV said on its Facebook page. A similar incident happened in May at the Shanghai Museum of Glass, where two children damaged a pair of wings affixed to a glass angel. The artist, who had named the sculpture "Angel is Waiting," decided to leave the damaged wings as is and renamed the piece "Broken," CCTV reported. Architectural wonders in LegoEveryone loves Mr Bean, don’t they? The response to that question should be a resounding ‘yes’. But now something rather troubling has come to our attention, and it’s making us think twice about that.
We’re talking, of course, about the two nightmarish, Lego-style models of Mr Bean that have risen to the surface of social media. If you ask us, these figurines — manufactured by Chinese company Jia Li Bo — are nothing short of terrifying. Just look at the giant, shiny helmet hair, the heavily-lidded eyes, the dual expressions of cruel amusement and pleasure-pain. And above all, look at how beaten-up his bear companion Teddy looks. He’s so ill he’s turned a shade of nuclear yellow. The two ‘funny cartoon character’ models, one dressed in nightwear and the other in Bean’s famous suit, are two of a set you’re supposed to collect. While there is no official Lego merchandise for Mr Bean in the West, it seems the character’s popularity has led to the creation of these monstrosities. Judging by the markings on the poorly-rendered faces, the JLB figures are loosely based on the animated series which originally aired here on ITV in 2002.
The recommended age bracket for kids to use these toys is 6 to 12, but we’re not sure we’d hand these demonic little fellas over to a child of a delicate disposition. — Gideon Defoe (@gideondefoe) October 1, 2016 Looking at the Bean toy’s face close up is not recommended to those under the influence, either. Nope, we definitely haven’t seen anything this scary since that footage from the abandoned Mr Blobby theme park emerged on YouTube. Kids don’t stand a chance these days. MORE: Dear internet, Rowan Atkinson is definitely not dead, thanks very much MORE: Game Of Thrones star Sean Bean sometimes gets fan mail meant for Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean Artisan Bricks by Jeffrey Kong - LEGO CNY Year of the Goat Chinese Character What you will be this year? A sure-footed goat that follows its heart… or a meek sheep that follows the herd? Hope you grab life by the horns! Happy Chinese New Year from Singapore. Courtesy of Mehmet Gözetlik
Our visual landscape is littered with corporate logos so seared into our brains that we barely have to glance in their direction for them to register. Istanbul-based designer Mehmet Gözetlik decided to imagine how Western brands might adapt their corporate logos for the world’s 1.3 billion Chinese speakers with “Chinatown,” a series of Chinese-style neon signs based on familiar Western logos. Replacing company names like Lego with the Chinese characters for the word for toy renders the logos legible for Chinese speakers but at times cryptic for those used to seeing them in their original forms. Although many of the brands Gözetlik considers already have a presence—and their own Chinese names—in China, the project is an interesting conceptual exercise that considers the challenges of translating visual corporate identities across cultural and linguistic barriers. “ ‘Chinatown’ reflects our branded world of the near future,” Gözetlik writes in a project description.
“Sooner or later, most major global brands will obviously need to adjust their meaning based on translation to demonstrate alignment with local Chinese culture and tastes. And most certainly they will collapse when the time comes, due to their existing brand structure that is built on western culture and Latin words.” In the images below, the English translations of the Chinese characters are at the bottom of the frames. Courtesy of Mehmet Gözetlik Courtesy of Mehmet GözetlikChineasy teaches the rich and complex Chinese language through cleverly designed images that illustrate the meaning of each character. The project was developed by ShaoLan Hsueh and is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. Image: ShaoLan HsuehThe Chinese language relies heavily on idioms that wouldn't be immediately obvious to Western learners. The symbol for "roof" is straightforward, but what about a "roof" over a "pig?" It means home, of course. Historically, the Chinese would raise pigs in their homes to protect them, making the idea of a pig under the roof a symbol of prosperous home.
A roof over a cow on the other hand? Image: ShaoLan HsuehThe illustrations help with the building blocks, but students must remember the importance of order. Depending on their sequence the same two characters can mean "anger" or "large fire." Image: ShaoLan HsuehHseuh hopes that by understanding the Chinese language, Westerners will better understand the Chinese culture. However, the current examples only confuse the gender dynamics of the society. The character for woman, when repeated, means "conflict" and adding a third means adultery, but repeating the symbol for "great" means "wife." Image: ShaoLan HsuehAs the project expanded in scope, some of the earliest characters needed to be reconsidered. The image on the left clearly depicts a woman, but was hard to incorporate into combinations of symbols so a more abstract, but flexible version was created. Image: ShaoLan HsuehChineasy is meant for students of all ages, but these temporary tattoos will make the prospect of extra homework a winner on the playground.
Image: ShaoLan HsuehAfter making more progress on the visual aspects of Chineasy Hseuh hopes to tackle the challenges of speaking the tonally complex language. Image: ShaoLan HsuehIn addition to teaching the language, Hsueh also helps share information about the culture—its rich history and some of its idiosyncrasies. This illustration was created to accompany a blog post about the Chinese habit of spitting in public. Image: ShaoLan HsuehThe glyph for "fire" is intended to evoke the simple structure of a campfire. Image: ShaoLan HsuehEven if you aren't interested in learning the language, the graphics make for great decorations. Created by Israeli illustrator Noma Bar, who has previously designed covers for The Economist, each one is elegantly crafted and perfectly encapsulates the character. Image: ShaoLan HsuehAs a perk for backing her Kickstarter campaign ShaoLan Hsueh will create a poster depicting your name. This one was made in honor of a famous American golfer—can you guess who?
Image: ShaoLan HsuehIn order to pull off a project like Chineasy, Hsueh had to pair the free flowing creativity of the illustrations with a rigorous understanding of how the characters connected, requiring the development of custom software. According to the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute, Chinese is a Class III language—the most difficult to master—and requires 2,200 hours of rigorous study to gain general proficiency. Luckily for procrastinators with tickets already booked to Beijing, a new design-focused learning system called Chineasy can teach students basic literacy in a matter of days. Chineasy, currently in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign, teaches English speakers how to read basic Chinese characters (traditional and simplified) by embedding them in colorful pictures that illustrate their meaning. The symbol for “person” is anthropomorphized into a picture of a walking man, while the glyph for “door” is illustrated to look like a saloon entrance from a cowboy movie.
After mastering eight of these simple characters, called “radicals” in the Chineasy system, learners can combine them to unlock the meaning behind dozens of more complex characters. For instance, putting the character for “person” inside the one for “door” creates the symbol for “escape.” The system is designed to address the major challenge of learning Chinese—the great wall of symbols that need to be deciphered and memorized. Knowledge of more than 20,000 characters is required for serious scholarship, mastering 1,000 is a requirement for basic literacy, but learning 200 will allow newbies to make sense of street signs, menus, newspaper headlines, and puts learners on par with a Chinese eight-year-old. Hsueh believes the Chinese language can work like Lego bricks. Chineasy was created by ShaoLan Hsueh, a Taipei-born, London-based venture capitalist, design enthusiast, and self-proclaimed geek. While teaching her English-born children the rudiments of her mother tongue, she quickly realized how difficult the language was to learn outside of a native context.
Language clubs and textbooks failed to inspire her children, so she decided to design a better solution. Hsueh developed software to break thousands of characters into their constituent parts and began to imagine how the building blocks of the language could be taught with playful illustrations rather than rote memorization. With a properly constructed system, Hsueh believes the Chinese language can work like Lego bricks and allow children to gain fluency by playfully constructing words and phrases. Hsueh was so passionate about the idea she took a sabbatical from investing and partnered with the London-based design firm Brave New World, who have previously completed projects for Barclays and Tommy Hilfiger, to develop more radicals as well as books, flash cards, and other products to teach the system. The design challenge seems deceptively simple, as many Chinese characters have pictographic origins, yet that rarely translates into a straightforward design process. Even simple words like “flower” require significant investments of time to capture perfectly.
“The character for ‘flower’ (花) is combination of the building blocks of ‘grass’ (艹) , ‘person’ (亻) and ‘dagger’ (匕),” says Hsueh. “Shall we draw a flower around the entire character (花)? Or shall we draw individual building blocks, then teach people how to assemble characters?” Hsueh took the latter approach, but if illustrating something as iconic as a flower is a challenge, imagine the difficulty of more advanced vocabulary like “carburetor” or “Existentialism.” With her three-person design team, Hsueh kicks off each illustration with a wild round of free association where 20-30 sketches are produced. The sketches are evaluated on their own merits and as part of the overall system, refined, and when the team is satisfied a single solution is sent to renowned illustrator Noma Bar who translates it into a Charley Harper-esqe representation of the character. The Chinese language is thousands of years old, yet Hsueh has infused the Chineasy system with her mid-century modern design sense by choosing bright blocks of color, simple sans serif fonts, and Paul Rand style illustrations as design motifs.
“I deliberately did not want to go for the traditional Chinese way of drawing because my audience is mainly Western,” says Hsueh. “The illustrations have to be something universal, modern, and elegant.” Quality control happens close to home—after each new flashcard is completed, Hsueh tests them on her children. If they can understand the character immediately, the Chineasy team proceeds with the design, otherwise, it’s back to the drawing board. ‘I deliberately did not want to go for the traditional Chinese way of drawing.’ As a canny investor, Hseuh realized that a tool to simplify learning Chinese is something overachieving parents, business travelers, and people looking to reconnect with their roots would appreciate. The Chineasy system has clear commercial potential as a design-friendly alternative to Rosetta Stone software or classes at a Berlitz center, but Hsueh’s goals are even bigger. “My real agenda is to bridge the gap between the East and the West, so that you can form your own views with accurate and sufficient knowledge,” she says.
“With such appreciation, I hope that people will be able to form better judgments on deeper and tougher subjects such as human rights, gender inequality, geopolitics, and social economic matters.” Ten million Chinese citizens can speak English and 300 million more are learning the language, while in the U.S., a scant 60,000 students have taken college level courses on the Chinese language. With Chineasy, hopefully more American students will take the first steps to learn the complex, but wonderfully rich language. “I give them a key to open the first door to understand and appreciate China and Chinese,” says Hsueh. “They have to walk the path themselves.” Even with Chineasy’s evocative imagery, it will take years of diligent study to successfully learn the language, but Hsueh promises her course can help impart some critical information quickly—like how to avoid ordering insects and snakes from the menu should you ever find yourself in Shanghai. Click here to visit the Kickstarter page.