Taiwanese designer Xiao Qing-yang (蕭青陽), whose design for the album Story Island (故事島) by local artist Lee Cin-yun (李欣芸) has won several international awards, launched a Web site yesterday in the hope of increasing his chances of bagging a Grammy award.
Story Island has been nominated for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards that will be announced on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles.
Xiao is the only Asian designer to have been nominated for a Grammy four times.
“I am not as nervous as I was before and I am now more concerned about sharing the stories of Taiwan with the world. But of course I really want to win this time,” he said at a press conference in Taipei.
Unlike conventional albums, Story Island does not contain a single photo or digital image on the cover or inside the album. Instead, it is designed as a wordless book with 11 pages of intricate and beautiful paper-cut patterns featuring the beauty and wrath of Mother Nature.
Xiao used laser paper-cut technology to piece together famous images and major events in Taiwan, ranging from the scenery of Orchid Island (蘭嶼) and a Formosan rock monkey hiding in the trees to the Presidential Office surrounded by fireworks and a group of people escaping from a flood.
The design earned him three major international awards last year — Best Recording Package from the 10th Chinese Music Media Awards in China, the Best of the Best from the Red Dot design award in Germany, and the Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum in the US.
The artist said having his work up for scrutiny at the Grammy Awards is not an easy task, because he does not have a big company to back and promote him.
His bilingual Web site allows visitors to see the album design page-by-page. According to -Xiao’s manager, Story Island has sold only a little more than 20,000 copies since it was released in September 2009. Because of the meticulous process of making the paper-cut patterns, only five copies are made every day.
Xiao was nominated in the Grammy Awards Best Recording Package category in 2005 for The Wandering Accordion (飄浮手風琴). In 2008, he was nominated again in the same category for White Horse (我身騎白馬) and in 2009, he was named for Poems and Songs (吳晟詩歌專輯) in the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package category.
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