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This Just In: Lunar New Year Posters by Omnivore
Our new exhibition space not only brought us Good Luck, but also a fantastic set of zodiac posters by a three-headed monster.
The big wall in Letterform Archive’s reading room now serves as a display case for small, short-run exhibitions. Our first pop-up opened in January to celebrate Lunar New Year. Curated by members of the Archive exhibition team, Jen Dao (姚逸雯) and Sherry Chou (徐雪俐), Good Luck explores the rich cultural heritage and modern interpretations of the holiday through a blend of custom red envelopes, holiday ephemera, and celebration event posters.
Among the contemporary pieces in Good Luck are four large screen prints featuring complex, stylized animals intertwined with letterforms. The posters come from the hive mind of Omnivore, a graphic design studio formed by “second-generation Asian-Americans, working mothers, design educators, small business owners, food lovers, justice seekers, and friends.” Alice Chung (Brooklyn), Karen Hsu (Portland, Oregon); and Julie Cho (Los Angeles) have been collaborating since 2002 and often think of themselves as a three-headed monster. Their firm is M/WBE (Minority- & Woman-owned) certified.
Thanks to a donation from Omnivore, their posters are now part of the Archive’s permanent collection. In celebration of the agreement, exhibition curators Dao and Chou asked Omnivore a few questions about their process.
All images in the gallery below are hi-fi captures. Click an image to enter fullscreen view, then click or pinch to enlarge.
Can you tell us a little bit about what sparked the “Omnivore Lunar New Year” collection?
One of the things I love most about our Lunar New Year (LNY) pieces is how they reflect a particular time. Our first LNY piece was the Year of the Rooster in 2017. We wanted to send some positivity into the world. There was an old idea of “giving people good luck,” which ended up materializing as the red envelope with the paper coins. Thinking about the paper coins still brings me happiness. My favorite is the 50-cent piece (“Party like it’s your birthday”). Each of the coins was a play on its monetary value.
I think, in general, these experiments allow us to play with language, the form of language, and the ways design manifests feelings about a specific moment. We created the placemat to accompany the LNY pieces that were part of Wrecked Alphabet, an exhibition organized by Joe Scanlan and Eric Li at The Broodthaers Society of America in 2020. It was an experiment for us to think about our LNY projects as signs and symbols, as interpretation and translation as Asian Americans. We loved how “character” expressed this. Lunar animals give character to a year, but the things that happen in the world at any given time are also characteristics and are also symbols of our time.
How long do you think this project will keep going?
After we finish the full twelve animals, maybe we can figure out how to re-imagine them as a set. Some of them would need to change, but it would be really fun to think about the twelve animals as a system!
How do you think your culture influences your design work? Any cultural influences within the LNY collection / outside of the collection in regular design work? What else inspires your work?
All of us have complicated memories of growing up being part of two worlds. While design can be a form of performance, understanding our work as a form of translation makes so much more sense in the context of our being children of immigrants. We recognize we have been translating our whole lives. We made a presentation a while back where we traced a line from the image-based aspect of a language like Mandarin to the image/text nature of expressive typography: “I had found a language living in my blood.”
Omnivore shares a lot from what we see, read, watch, etc. I love so much a continued learning. Design is such a reflection. It seems most accurate to say influence is everywhere. Being able to dream and experiment together is a truly joyous way to embrace the unknown. When we start a project, we don’t always know where we will go.
Does the zodiac animal inform the design output? We’re curious about how you chose a poster for dragon, dog, and ox, but confetti coins for rooster and a card for rat.
We definitely do start with specific ideas. For both the LNY and general studio projects, we often start with words. We start with words and feelings, and the form evolves from that. The Year of the dog began as a “Lucky Dog.” Contrasting form from year-to-year creates a nice texture. There are some personal reasons to connect the dog, ox, and dragon as posters; they are literally part of a family. For the rat, we couldn’t believe how fantastic that velveteen paper was and really wanted to use it, so turning it into a bit of a rat pelt felt like the right form.
We love seeing other designers’ processes here at Letterform Archive! What is your process from start to finish when creating something for the LNY collection?
Our design process varies. We text, Slack, Zoom, email. My favorite brainstorms are by phone or Zoom where we are just talking with each other about what we’re thinking about. Then we will sketch. We’ll talk and sketch and talk and sketch. Sometimes one of us will drive on screenshare and we’ll just try things and ask questions and flounder. Often it feels right because we finally agree that it feels right! The form of the snake was something we texted each other as a Notes sketch, and then later as a video of a miniature prototype dummy. Its story evolved out of the idea of the form.
Time is probably the most complicated vector in our process. It would be nice to have more time!
Who are some current Asian American designers that have been blowing your mind lately?
As a studio, we also think about Alex Lin, Jon Santos, Patrick Li, Yoonjai Choi, Jiminie Ha, Geoff Han, Sulki and Min. There are so many really amazing designers.
What are some of your biggest challenges as Asian women in this field?
Unfortunately, pay disparity and the "graphic design sweatshop” exist. We are so fortunate to have been able to carve out space for ourselves together. We have been able to collaborate with really nice people. Luckily the not-great collaborators usually don’t come back.
Do you have any ideas for the Year of the Horse yet? Do you think it’ll be another poster or something different (i.e. rabbit or rooster)?
Wow! The Year of the Horse! This reminds me: we did make an animated GIF for the horse such a long time ago. No ideas yet. We still need to mail our snakes! We got so behind we sent the tigers, rabbits, and dragons all together. Luckily we have … the rest of this year to get organized.
Good Luck is on view in the Archive reading room through May 11, 2025. (Closed March 17 – April 4). Entry is included with a ticket to the gallery.