Students from the advertising design program at New Taipei City’s Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School have created a series of posters that explores the origins of many of the nation’s older place names.
The project, titled “Where is it?” — the written equivalent of the Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) expression: di dou wee (地兜位?) — illustrates the stories and unique characteristics of various townships, student Chang Pei-wen (張佩雯) said.
The students visited each township when possible to take photographs and notes, Chang said.
Photo: Weng Yu-huang, Taipei Times
“Many places have interesting stories that lend themselves to illustration,” student Weng Ching-lan (翁靖嵐) said, citing as an example Nantou’s Caotun Township (草屯), which was named for countless travelers who discarded their straw sandals there after buying new ones.
Travelers that used to pass through the town on their way to Puli Township (埔里) would wear out their sandals walking on the uneven roads from Taichung, Weng said, adding that the town’s original name was Tsaohsieh Tun (草鞋墩), or “straw sandal mound.”
The group illustrated the town by painting a mound of sandals in a “nostalgic style” and paired it with a poem written by one of the students, Weng said.
“A man stops to rest and exchanges his sandals. Sandals, discarded by so many, have grown into a pile,” the poem reads.
The group made posters illustrating Caotun, Guanyin (觀音), Emei (峨眉), Dingnei (碇內), Sinjhuang (新莊), Linkou (林口), Tsaolan (草濫), Ganjiao Cheng (柑腳城), Xikou (錫口) and Meishan (梅山) townships, Weng said, adding that they were designed to emulate postage stamps with serrated edges.
The group imagined people sending letters with postage stamps based on old place names, Weng said.
“We wanted to capture an emotional connection with these historical places,” Weng said.
Program director Lin Pei-ching (林蓓菁) said the project combined elements of the past and present, and students were able to give the posters a “retro” feel using computer graphics.
“The result is quite beautiful. They are exceptionally good pieces,” Lin said.
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