Featured Artist
Danyang Ma
Luca Curci talks with the Featured Artist Danyang Ma and explores her artistic talent.

Danyang Ma is a self-motivated, New York-based visual designer. Her creative passion lies in branding, social, and motion design. Her style always follows nature’s pattern, with a pure and simple form, and is dedicated to details. Danyang believes in reasonable and intuitive design thinking, along with delivering effective visual solutions to communicate messages and achieve long-term visions.

She is currently working on her project “The New News“, a daily, 15-minute broadcast for kids that discusses the most important national, international, and local events mixed with lighter yet informative news and tidbits. She is also working on her poster Danyang designed for the “Permitted to Bloom” Nature Art Festival, hosted by a reptile conceptual museum/art space based in Beijing. It combines elements of nature and pop art to give people an immersive experience and offers an exhibition space that conveys various art forms. Danyang’s poster comprises three components related to the concept – “blooming flowers,” indicating the title and nature, insects to emphasize the theme, and 3D objects representing pop toys and models.

Luca Curci – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
Danyang Ma – Painting has been my passion since childhood. I started using Photoshop in middle school to create art collages and design pieces. This experience helped me gradually develop a personal art style and realize I wanted to become a creative professional. My undergraduate school is profound in architecture and interior design. Heavily influenced by early art education, I took away a minimal, constructive, and functional accent in my design approach.

LC – How did you get to your current artistic practice?
DM – My professional artistic practice started from an internship at Gretel, during which time the works mainly focused on everything brand-oriented. I found myself interested in digging deeper into a brand’s story and the value behind it. Later as I switched to roles more focused on social design, I found a lot of fun creating pieces for social media, for it engages visuals in various mediums, such as content, still graphics, motions, and films.

LC – How is your creative process?
DM – The process starts with interpreting and identifying the idea my clients want to communicate. They were followed by researching for inspirations of logos, layouts, styles, etc. And then, I would create 3-5 sketches with different directions. I let the clients decide which direction they prefer. And then proceed with designing the rest of the deliverables.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
DM – My interpretation of “empty” and “full” has been re-formed. As I get more hands-on projects in professional practice, I realize sometimes it’s helpful to reduce elements and leave space for designs to breathe. Simplicity brings an inclusive and timeless sense to the work.

LC – Which project has given you the most satisfaction thus far?
DM – A project inspired by stand-up comedy, debating the sense of humor in comedy and how much violation it brings to people. Researching comedy subjects and demonstrating a visual system based on fictitious algorithms and mathematics was satisfying and enjoyable. It is one of my favorite projects.

LC – How do you feel when you see your work completed?
DM – I’m very grateful for opportunities to collaborate with all clients and help them find solutions to bring their brand furthermore. Every project is a dynamic and exciting process. Being creative makes people excited. Designers are always trying out, looking for, and exploring new ideas.

more. www.danyangma.com