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YIYING LU
“Yiying” is 2 characters in Chinese. “Yi” means Happy; “Ying” means Creative.
Born in Shanghai, Yiying moved to Sydney when she was a teenager, and was educated in the UK and Australia. She studied at Central St Martins College of Art & Design in London and the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Yiying received her Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication (1st-Class Honors) from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2007.
Yiying has done design and creative work for Anna Sui New York, Sony Digital Japan, Maybelline, Saatchi & Saatchi, eBay, Getty Images, Twitter, Glam Media, JWT, TBS, Team Coco, Pepsico, Gallery Bar NYC, the Surfrider Foundation, The Shorty Awards, Nootie, Hotel des Arts, ASDA UK, Optus, Smashing Magazine, the University of Technology Sydney, McCann World Group, the Australian Trade Commission, and the Sydney Aquarium.
Yiying Lu is currently Co-Founder and Creative Director of WALLS 360, the on-demand wall graphics company.
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TWENTY-ONE QUESTIONS with YIYING LU
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What is WALLS 360 all about?
WALLS 360 is a start-up company that creates on-demand wall graphics for artists, designers, and brands from around the world.
We launched Walls360.com on December 2, 2010, with an exhibition of my own wall graphic designs at Hotel des Arts in San Francisco. Since then, we have been perfecting and expanding our platform, and launching dedicated wall graphic storefronts for visual content partners globally – we just launched TETRIS and STAR TREK wall graphics, and we just started working with ThinkGeek…
WALLS 360 is working to bring the world’s premier digital visual content to ‘real-world’ walls, and our mission is very simple: Art for Everywhere!
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What are you working on today?
Designs and artwork for the first WALLS 360 augmented reality ‘Visualize Art’ applications for the iPhone and the iPad, created by MOB in Sydney…
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WALLS 360 in 5 words or less?
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What are some of your most recent projects?
WALLS 360 just launched a bunch of ‘Wall Badges’ at SXSW for Guy Kawasaki, Loopt, AUSTRADE and the Australian Consulate, Team Coco, iTourU, and The Startup Bus…
We have also been working on a lot of fun ART projects, including Damon Johnson’s most recent exhibition, The Beautiful Chaos in New York, the &Them Collective Exhibition in San Francisco, and my own Shorty Awards and #ShortyArtShow exhibitions in New York.
Here are some of my recent digital designs:
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Yiying Lu: Conan O'Brien Pale Whale Art for Turner Broadcasting
Yiying Lu: Custom Wall Badges for The Shorty Awards
Yiying Lu: Uluru Kangaroo Wall Graphics | G'Day USA: Microsoft Silicon Valley
Yiying Lu: Laughing Squid 15th Anniversary
Yiying Lu: #ShortyArtShow
Yiying Lu: Comp for Cambridge University American Football Club Logo
Yiying Lu: SecretSocial 500 Error Page Digital Designs
Yiying Lu: SecretSocial 410 Error Page Digital Designs
Yiying Lu: SecretSocial 401 Error Page Digital Designs
Yiying Lu: SecretSocial 404 Error Page Digital Designs
Yiying Lu: Wall Badges for G'Day USA / Microsoft Silicon Valley
Yiying Lu: Branding & Packaging for Nootie Pet Shampoo
Yiying Lu: Digital Astronaut Wall Graphics for Pepsi + @Astro_Wheels, Real Astronaut!
Yiying Lu: Pepsi Digital Designs + Wall Graphics (2011 is the Year of the Rabbit!)
Yiying Lu: Chapter Illustrations for Smashing Book 2.
Yiying Lu: Chapter Illustrations for Smashing Book 2.
Yiying Lu: Chapter Illustrations for Smashing Book 2.
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What inspires you?
What has inspired you lately?
Children’s books and cartoons. Mr. Men and Little Miss. The World of Eric Carle. Snoopy from Peanuts. Noddy in Toyland. Barbapapa. Spot. Olivia. Paddington Bear. Letters from Rainer Maria Rilke. Short Stories from O’Henry. Quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince. Peter Newell’s Topsys & Turvys! Alan Fletcher’s “Art of Looking Side Ways” and Paul Rand’s Colorforms logo & “Eye, Bee, Em”. Conan O’Brien and Team Coco. Robot Chicken. Futurama and Tetris. Comic books and cartoons. 8-bit video games. Anime and manga. Vintage Japanese and Chinese pornography. Sheldon Lee Cooper of Big Bang Theory says “Bazinga!” Dilbert. Dita von Teese. The burlesque photography of Bernard of Hollywood. TAZO’s. Hayao Miyazaki. Kseniya Simonova. Osvaldo Cavandoli. Bruno Munari and Saul Steinberg and Edward De Bono. Memphis and Bauhaus. Georgia O’Keefe. Primary colors. Shapes and textures and objects. Panoramic photography. WPA posters. Tourmaline and Gelato. Wasabi Peas and Koala Biscuits. An unexpected image on a 404 page that makes me smile. National Geographic. Geometric patterns from an Emilio Pucci dress. Music from Daft Punk. The spraycan magic of Vulcan and Apex. Chor Boogie’s ‘Boogie Birds’. The paintings of Casey O’Connell. Banksy. Andre the Giant stickers and wheat pastes by Shepard Fairey on random walls in Shanghai and Sydney and London and New York. Museums and art galleries in every new city. A bowl of Korean spicy noodle soup. YouTube clips of TED talks. A friend’s call over Skype. An Audible Book from Elizabeth Gilbert. Entrepreneurs and Dreamers from around the world… Inspiration is everywhere!
Wall Graphics for Kids?
Which wall graphics do you have on your own walls?
TETRIS! I love the simplicity and the history…
And I have a few of my new BRIGHT IDEAS wall graphics on the walls in my home office – I switch them around from wall-to-wall!
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What are your favorite wall graphics that YOU designed?
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How did you meet the other co-founders of WALLS 360?
I first met the three other co-founders of WALLS 360 virtually – we worked together for months before we actually met in person!
I had read online about the projects that Tavia & John were doing with mobile & video game art, John’s work with Into the Pixel and the ‘Painted Rooms’ Exhibitions at Hotel des Arts in San Francisco, and their experiments with licensing on-demand artist wall graphics…
7000 miles away in San Francisco, Tavia and John had seen the online articles about my own experiments with augmented reality artwork at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, and were also familiar with the Twitter ‘Fail Whale’ and some of my other digital designs.
So we had immediate affinity and ‘social proof’! We connected over Facebook and via Skype, and we ended up working together on creative projects with brands, galleries, museums, publishers, and small specialty print shops from around the world…
As Timothy Leary said: FIND THE OTHERS!
And we did – via art, technology, and social media! We became fast friends and amazing collaborators, and it soon became clear that we needed to CREATE a new company that would bring the world’s digital visual content to empty walls everywhere!
Through Tavia and John, I met Jason, who was the founder of the world’s first on-demand wall graphics company for kids. Jason created the first exhibition of ‘Artist Wall Graphics’ at the Hotel des Arts in San Francisco with Tavia and John a few years ago, and over the past several months, and with the help of friends and partners from around the world, together we created and launched WALLS 360...
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Any advice for other entrepreneurial designers?
I am a big fan of TED TALKS, and I think that Richard St. John’s outlook perfectly captures how to be successful, no matter what you are trying to achieve!
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Favorite TED Talks?
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What is a ‘Wall Tangram’?
I first played with Tangrams as a child – probably 2 or 3 years old – in Shanghai with my grandfather! Tangrams are an ancient Chinese puzzle, consisting of 7 geometrical pieces that can be re-arranged to form thousands of designs. I have been fascinated by the possibilities of this puzzle game and have been researching and playing with tangrams for almost my entire life!
As a child, I played with paper, wooden, and metal tangrams. When I first started experimenting with on-demand digital printing on self-adhesive fabric paper, I knew that I could create giant re-positionable and interactive ‘Wall Tangrams’ with this new medium, and bring my favorite creative + artistic mind game to empty walls around the world…
When WALLS 360 launched our first collections of ‘Wall Tangrams’ in December, we gave away 100 sets to teachers & classrooms around the world – from Borneo to Maryland – this was our entire demo-unit budget for 2010!
It won’t be done for a few weeks, but we are currently working on a video about all the ways that kids around the world are using WALLS 360 WALL TANGRAMS in the classroom!
Compositional teaching aids for the principles of design. Manipulatives for textile/kinesthetic learners. Art. Shapes. Story telling. Team building. Special Education. Maths. Geometry. Even stop-motion animation!
http://www.walls360.com/tangrams
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What is on your iPod right now?
Daft Punk, Röyksopp, Zero 7, The Buggles, The Bird and The Bee, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Air, The Doors, Pet Shop Boys, Cafe del Mar, David Allen, Elizabeth Gilbert, Eckhart Tolle, Howard Schultz, Edward De Bono, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
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Favorite quote?
Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
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Smashing Book 2?
I created the chapter illustrations for SMASHING BOOK 2 – it was an amazing project and a lot of fun to work on…
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These SMASHING ANIMALS are of course available as giant wall graphics, too!
http://www.Walls360.com/Smashing
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WALLS 360 + Yiying Lu Wall Graphics in Time Magazine?
A few weeks ago, Harry McCracken tweeted that WALLS 360 wall graphics had made a cameo appearance in Time Magazine – this is how I found out about this! Time Magazine’s article featured Dave McClure, and the accompanying photo featured WALLS 360 wall graphics on the conference room wall at 500 Startups…
Harry’s yfrog photo below, featuring a giant SPOCK wall graphic from WALLS 360, along with my Wall Tangrams and Wall Flowers!
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What are you currently reading?
I just finished Smashing Book 2, and I intend to finish these three books (all written by WALLS 360 advisors!) in the next month…
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The future of wall graphics?
I believe that high-tech wall graphics like the ones we are creating at WALLS 360 are a new medium for creative expression. Much like color-lithography in the 19th century and photo-lithography in the 20th century, I believe that on-demand re-positionable wall graphics will totally transform how we interact in the real-world with digital visual content in the 21st century.
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What’s next for WALLS 360?
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What’s next for you?
For the last four months, I have been flying around the world, meeting with amazing and inspirational people, telling them about WALLS 360, evangelizing our wall graphics and vision, putting on big wall graphic exhibitions and art shows, working with digital content creators and licenses, and visually creating and expanding the WALLS 360 platform…
What’s next? More of the same, but hopefully with a little more sleep!
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THE DAILY TELEGRAPH on Yiying Lu:
Artist Yiying Lu is turning her dream to cover the world in art into reality. The Sydney-based designer – famed for creating Twitter’s Fail Whale image that displays when the social network has crashed – has started a company, Walls 360, which produces life-sized wall graphics from Lu’s collection through to Star Trek characters.
Although barely three months old, Walls 360 is working with Sydney app developer and augmented reality specialists Mob-Labs to build an art visualisation app which shows what the wall graphics will look like on home-owners walls before they even buy the giant reusable stickers.
The team is working on securing a series of licences including a leading children’s book publisher and a vintage poster producer.
Lu – along with US business partners John Doffing, Tavia Campbell and Jason Weisenthal – have been able to start Walls 360 between flittering between Australia and the US in the last three months running art exhibitions of her work at premiere events from G’Day Australia and the South By Southwest festival to the Shorty Awards…
The Daily Telegraph: Artist Lu is Painting The Town in Art
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FLAVORWIRE on Yiying Lu:
Yiying Lu, the Sydney-based artist behind Twitter’s now infamous “Fail Whale” illustration (and subsequent spin-offs — like the Conan O’Brien inspired “Pale Whale”) has an obsession with mixing cute animals and technology in her work. Now, as the co-founder of a new company called WALLS 360, she hopes to revolutionize the world of adhesive wall graphics by using premium fabric paper that can be moved up to 100 times…
FlavorWire: The US Debut of “Fail Whale” Artist Yiying Lu
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CNET on Yiying Lu:
For the Chinese-born and Australia resident Lu, who studied business and technology in college and later art, becoming a partner (and the artistic/creative director) in a company like Walls360 is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new artistic medium. She seems keen on being involved in something that could democratize art in some small way, given how expensive it usually is to hang art, and the inexpensive prices Walls360 plans to charge…
CNET: ‘Fail Whale’ Creator Aims to Democratize Art
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The SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE on Yiying Lu:
Yiying Lu’s most famous illustration thus far is linked with failure – and that has turned out to be a good thing.
The young artist is the bubbly brainchild behind Twitter’s “fail whale,” the image that appears when Twitter is overloaded and can’t function. In the picture, a flock of birds carry an enormous, smiling whale over the water.
Through Twitter, the whale has become a sign of the times. This year, the popular San Francisco microblogging service sent an astonishing 25 billion messages of 140 characters or fewer and added 100 million new users.
Though the fail whale doesn’t appear as frequently as it once did on Twitter, it lives on. It has inspired a fan club, two parties and at least one tattoo. Last month, for the premiere of his new show, Conan O’Brien commissioned Lu to create the “pale whale,” which depicts the comedian riding on top of a whale as it is being carried by birds.
The whale has also helped part the waves for a new startup, Walls 360, an online store that sells prints and wall graphics, including a line of fail whales and its friends. Lu, a co-founder, was in San Francisco this month to kick off the site and hold her first solo art exhibit at the Hotel des Arts…
San Francisco Chronicle: Yiying Lu Makes Splash with Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale’
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The LOS ANGELES TIMES on Yiying Lu:
Conan O’Brien is entering a new post-”Tonight Show” era with his return to late night. For the occasion, the bearded, rebranded television show host and Twitter celebrity asked artist Yiying Lu to create his very own version of Twitter’s “fail whale” called the “Pale Whale.” Lu has other news: She has co-founded a start-up that will launch in San Francisco next month…
Los Angeles Times: Artist Creates Twitter Homage for Conan O’Brien
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TEAM COCO on Yiying Lu:
It was a delight when the artist behind Twitter’s infamous Fail Whale – Yiying Lu – stopped by to say hello and shower Team Coco with gifts! Aside from being SUPER talented and INSANELY awesome, Yiying was also nice enough to sit down and talk to us a little bit about her inspiration behind the fail whale, as well as her newest project WALLS 360…
Team Coco: Watch Conan Meet Twitter’s Fail Whale Artist!
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HOLY COOL on Yiying Lu:
WALLS 360 is a new start up that creates on demand self-adhesive re-positionable wall graphics for artists and designers from around the world. The company is co-founded by Australian artist Yiying Lu, who is also the creative director. And naturally, Walls 360 is featuring a great collection of interactive wall art by Yiying Lu…
The wall graphics are of very high quality, and the colors are nice and vibrant. Applying the graphics on the walls are as simple as peel and stick. And let’s not forget the ‘re-positionable’ part, you can easily peel these graphics off the wall and stick them somewhere else as many times as you’d like (up to 100 times) and they will stick like new…
Holy Cool: WALLS 360 Interactive Wall Graphics from Yiying Lu
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The NEW YORK TIMES on Yiying Lu:
Yiying Lu, an artist and a designer in Sydney, Australia, has made a number of appealing illustrations, many featuring animals. But one image in her portfolio is far more likely to be familiar to at least some of you than any of the others: the one depicting a peaceful whale held aloft by a small flock of birds. To certain particularly dedicated users of the online social-networking service Twitter, the “Fail Whale” is as iconic as any corporate logo, and far more beloved. Some have bought the T-shirt, and some have joined the fan club…
The New York Times: A Successful Failure
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The SYDNEY MORNING HERALD on Yiying Lu:
Art and technology can be strange bedfellows but when Fail Whale designer Yiying Lu is involved, you can always count on the results being interesting. The Shanghai-born artist, now based in Sydney, is most famous for her illustration of a white whale being lifted out of the water by a small flock of birds that appears when popular microblogging site Twitter crashes.
Since Lu is no stranger to the tie-in between art and technology, it’s appropriate she is headlining Australia’s first Web Week, which begins in Sydney on Friday. The free exhibition (her first solo) brings the world of cutting-edge web technology, social media and artistic creativity together…
The Sydney Morning Herald: Modern Art, But Not as You Know It
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LARS RASSMUSSEN on Yiying Lu:
Cool doesn’t quite cut it when describing WALLS 360. Between the artistry of the founders, the near-magic “re-positionable fabric paper” medium, and their on-demand production, this business could find some real legs as the WALLS 360 wall graphics platform expands to artists and designers globally.
The WALLS 360 team posses the infectious founders’ passion necessary for success, and I am confident Twitter’s fantastic “fail whale” will not be Yiying’s last hit!
Lars Rassmussen (Google Maps, Google Wave, Facebook)
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SCROLL MAGAZINE on Yiying Lu:
If ever there was a case to be made for nominative determinism Yiying Lu must be it. In Shanghainese, (Yiying was born and brought up in Shanghai) Yiying means ‘happy and creative’. To meet this hyperkinetic woman in her early 20s — an honours graduate of the University of Technology’s Design program in 2007, who’s already been named in The Australian newspaper as one of the 100 emerging innovation leaders — is to be instantly affirmed of her happiness. And a brief look at her portfolio is to be assured that she is also most definitely creative, as anyone familiar with her most famous creation will attest…
…Such a fixation with cuddly animals would seem a contradiction for the graduate of a prestigious, selective mathematics and sciences focused school, where design and art simply weren’t on the agenda. But apparent contradictions are central to Yiying’s approach to the world. A ‘left brain’ child by her own admission, the drawers under her bed literally bursting with Japanese and Chinese manga comic books, Yiying chose to pursue a technical education, recognizing the ‘right brain’ shortcomings in her youthful outlook. She says now of that education, which was something she had to work hard to keep up with, that the ability to think mathematically helps her with the more technical aspects of design — from using sophisticated software, to determining the complex folds for her recent ‘Aussiegami’ project — a dozen origami pieces depicting those furry (and some not so furry) Australian animals that you can fold yourself…
Scroll Magazine: John Allsopp on Yiying Lu
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SYDNEY CENTRAL MAGAZINE on Yiying Lu
Artist Yiying Lu has become the poster child for the online art community after her now famous Fail Whale was picked up by Twitter as it’s downtime logo.
At an exhibition on this week, Lu will be displaying a collection of artworks that make up part of a new breed of hybrid cross communication art that walks between digital, physical and commercial realities.
“It’s about expanding the understanding of art, so it’s not necessarily the normal or traditional understanding of what art is,” Lu said. “Art can be anything, art can be anywhere and there are no boundaries.”
Sydney Central Magazine: Young Artists All A Twitter
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http://www.YiyingLu.com
http://www.Walls360.com/Yiying
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