Some Fashions I Like During the Lockdown by Mansuo Zhang

Sharing some fashion campaigns and fashion short films I discovered and liked during the lockdown. Pandemic has definitely changed the way people experience fashion in 2020, but it still makes me happy to see the beauty of fashion through these amazing visuals.


Brunello Cucinelli FW2020

 

Brunello Cucinelli FW2020

 

Saint Laurent SS2021 Men

 

Alexander McQueen AW2020 Pre-Collection



Maison Margiela S.W.A.L.K

won't wake up, why not? by Mansuo Zhang

Photography Collection Of
ICELAND, Curated by JIMMYRECKLESS

Won’t Wake Up, Why not? is a photography collection curated by JIMMYRECKLESS. All photographs are taken in various locations in Iceland in 2019. The collection pictures the wildness and natural beauty of the Nordic, illustrating the metaphysical interactions between reality and fantasy in visual collage. The title “Won’t Wake Up, Why not?” represents the subtle distinctions between realistic and unrealistic world, or something in between the two, specifically, in a place like Iceland where reality and fantasy somehow blend together.

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INTERESTING THINGS I'VE EXPERIENCED IN GERMANY by Mansuo Zhang

I spent about a year living and working in Germany between 2017 and 2018 and thought it was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve ever had in my life. It was my first time moving out of Canada by myself and my first time in Germany as well as in Europe. The differences between Canada and Germany were really overwhelming at the beginning…everything was so different, which brought up a lot of fun experiences, and in this blog, I’m gonna talk about some funny things (or weird things?) I’ve experienced in Germany. Oh, one thing, I LOVE GERMANY. I always call it my second home! P.S., what I’m saying about Germany might be wrong or inaccurate, but these were really my real impression of Germany!

 

GERMANS ARE REALLY REALLY FAST

I did some research about Germans and Germany before I moved there, and it says Germans are really efficient in dealing things. I was actually curious about that, and when I moved there, I found this kind of efficiency could be seen not only at workplaces, but also in grocery stores, mail offices, restaurants, etc..

For example, in German grocery stores like Kaufland, I always saw cashiers quickly scanning and swinging the items to the other side so fast while Germans packing their things so fast as well. They didn’t seem to have enough time to arrange their stuff in the shopping bag properly. I’ve never seen Germans packing things one by one so slowly at the checkout, instead, all I saw was they quickly threw the items into the bag or the shopping cart, and then arranged the items outside of the line after the checkout. This drag-and-drop style of checking out items was really overwhelming to me at first. In Canada, it is completely the opposite, the line is slow, customers are picky about placing items, some Canadians even pick up a chat with the cashier during middle of the checkout. I think if you really did that in Germany, those Germans at the back would really gonna kick your butt off!

Same thing in mail office and phone carrier shops, people working there all seemed so anxious and gathered all the information so swiftly, which made them look like they were up for something else right after. Sometimes it made me feel anxious too, haha.

 
HAMBURG, GERMANY

HAMBURG, GERMANY

 

GERMANS ARE HUMBLE

Many people think Germans are aggressive, but to me Germans are just fast, which has nothing to do with aggressive. In fact, Germans are one of the most humble type of people I’ve known, sometimes I think Germans are very shy.

When I was doing my insurance at the AOK, a German lady whose English was really limited took care of me while I was waiting for another English-speaking assistant in the office. The reason she took over my case was that English-speaking assistant was busy with other customers on appointments and she didn’t want to keep me waiting for so long. The entire time, she was really apologetic about her bad English, and kept saying “sorry, my English is not really good”, which melted my heart so bad and made me feel so guilty for not speaking German! I kept telling her “Don’t say sorry please, I should be the one who is apologetic for not speaking German in Germany!” But she said she understood people don’t speak German because it is a hard language!

Another example was me looking for the Auslanderbehorde and was lost in the middle of streets, a mail delivering lady saw me and tried to speak to me in English asking what’s up till I told her I was trying to find the Auslanderbehorde, she actually took me there and guided me through to find the office I was looking for, and told that person who worked in the office to take care of me nicely because I don’t speak any German.

 
HAMBURG, GERMANY

HAMBURG, GERMANY

 

GERMANS ARE ACCURATE

I’ve mentioned about this before one of my previous blogs, and this still gets me every time I think of Germans…THEY ARE PUNCTUAL. For example, me dealing with the visa extension, the lady who worked they told me I was gonna receive a notice regarding my visa in mail in a week, I remember clearly it was on Friday when I filed this request, and surprisingly I did received the notice in the mail the following Friday…. EXACTLY A WEEK! I heard many people complaining about Auslanderbehorde in bigger cities in Germany, but I was really lucky to have my visa extended on the exact time they promised! There were many other times I was dealing things at the Rathaus and Auslanderbehorde, which made me feel like if a German tells you gonna hear from them in 7 days, you WILL hear from them in 7 days.

Another thing I like about Germans is they are really specific and accurate. This could be a good thing, but sometimes it could be overwhelming. I always feel like if Germans tell you something, and they normally don’t like telling you a second time, a third time, 4th….because they expect you to remember what they said in the first time. I have a goldfish memory so I always forget things, and every time I ask things my German friends have already told me before, they all say “I’ve told you before!”.

 
HUGO BOSS AG, METZINGEN, GERMANY

HUGO BOSS AG, METZINGEN, GERMANY

 

THE GIRL AT THE TRAIN STATION

I was once on my way back to Germany from Belgium and the train terminated at Frankfurt central station so I had to transfer to another one to get back to Stuttgart. It was my first time travelling by train so I was lost really at 9 at night at the station. I was really panicking till I met this girl on the platform, I went up to told her “I am a Canadian and I’m just lost”, She was really friendly and she tried her best help me find the right train and route back to Stuttgart. We actually took the same train, but different destinations. She was in the first class coach while I was in the second, but surprisingly, she actually came into my coach to find me and make sure I know the route back. She was one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met.

 


I LOVE GERMANY

It was really my first experience living outside of Canada by myself, and Germany turns out has given me a really positive experience. When my home city Calgary didn’t take me in, I was welcomed graciously by this country that’s thousands of miles away from home. Every time I describe Germany as my second home. I have a lot of German friends and penpals and I sincerely love them all. It is kinda weird, but despite the German language which I don’t speak, Germany is always so familiar like my home, and I forever appreciate my time there. LOVE!

STUTTGART, GERMANY

STUTTGART, GERMANY

ANIMATION & VR, by JIMMY AND... by Mansuo Zhang

 

ANIMATION & VR


The collaboration project is to explore 2D animations in a 3D environment created using VR technology,
interacting and experiencing animations with visuals, movement, and sound.
The challenge is to create a new animation experience from a non-flat-screen perspective for the audiences.
The purpose of the project is to explore new techniques, technologies, and new programs.

London College of Communication,
University of the Arts London


 

Animators:
Jimmy Mansuo Zhang
Xuan Zhang

 

 
 
 

Style of Animation:

Animations are rendered as a bunch of sketchy and scribbling doodles with spraypaints and graffiti elements, creating a chaotic visual collage with both static and animated artworks.

The black-and-white colour scheme makes it look like line-drawings which are normally found in a sketch book. The main motif of the animations is composed with various skulls, roses, and ghosts, etc., which emotionally intends to create a spooky feeling as well as a comedic sense through both visuals and audio sound for the audiences.

DAY 35

Environment:

In conformity with the style of the animations, the environment is also rendered in simple black-and-white line-drawing style, featuring random doodles floating around in the 3D space. The audiences can navigate themselves in the environment to explore animations at different location points.

 
DAY 35
 
 

The process of the project starts with creating 2D animations,
building some basic elements on Cinema 4D,
and later bringing everything into the VR environment via Unity.
The user is supposed to navigate inside the environment by tapping on the teleportation point with the VR controller.

 
DAY 35

All animations are animated as spritesheet which is sliced on Unity,
exported in the way shown above.

 

INSPIRATIONS

 

Alexander McQueen Robot

The animation is inspired by one of the most prestigious Alexander McQueen showcases in Spring 1999 which had two robots spraypainted over the model who was spinning in the middle.

For the theme of the project, the model is replaced with the iconic skull in the animation with a warm background full of skulls.

 
 
DAY 35
 
 
 

Skull Wallpaper

Repetitive skull pattern with a colour scheme inspired by traditional Japanese graphic print as an individual environment for selected animations at a specific location.

 
DAY 35
 
DAY 35
 

Frank and Jumpman

Inspired by Censored Eleven animated cartoon back in the 1930s. Frank, the coin flipping character is inspired by the old Brooklyn street lifestyle.

 
DAY 35
 
 

ANIMATION & AR
FT.VUFORIA

 

Jumpman & AR

Besides VR technology, AR (Augumented Reality) has also been applied and tested to the Jumpman animation, created using both Unity along with the Vuforia plugin, making the Jumpman be able to jump on a $20 bill, which can be shown through the AR camera.

The final testing is made specifically for iOS platform, which is tested on the iPad Pro via Xcode 10 provided by Apple.

 

THE COLLECTION