In April 2025, the name of Xi'an Eurasia University first appeared at the Award Ceremony of the Joseph Binder Award held at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, Austria.

Award-winning work "BIANG"

The Joseph Binder Award was first launched in 1996 by designaustria in honor of the famous graphic designer and illustrator Joseph Binder. It is an influential world-class visual design competition. This year, 442 graphic designers and illustrators from 35 countries submitted 896 entries.

The work "BIANG" submitted by Xi'an Eurasia University won the silver award in the competition. Huang Fang, the designer of the work, is a teacher at the School of Culture & Media. He shouted happily when receiving the trophy.

Huang Fang, Designer of "BIANG", and a Teacher at the School of Culture & Media

Huang Fang, one of the first Masters of Fine Arts recognized by the Ministry of Education, has many years of working experience in national first-class media outlets. He once served as Visual Director of Shaanxi Woman Friend Media Group, and is currently a teacher at the School of Culture & Media of Xi'an Eurasia University. He has been engaged in various commercial design for a long time, and known for a large number of design cases and award-winning works. His designs have won the Merit Award of GDC17 and GDC21 (Graphic Design in China), and the Nomination Prize and Jury's Choice Prize of Macau Design Award 2021 and 2023.

"BIANG" combines the structural features of printed characters and handwriting using a brush. The designer placed the Chinese character "biang" in full-screen format, infusing the work with various emotions and meanings by utilizing seven pure colors that create a striking contrast between warm and cool tones. In Huang Fang's conception, "BIANG" is an attempt to transform the local culture of Xi'an, an ancient capital with a history of over one thousand years, into an interpretative symbol with global attribute.

"BIANG" (one of the seven background colors)

The designer chose the character "biang" for two reasons: First, it represents a specialty food in the Guanzhong area (mainly Shaanxi). Second, it is known as "the Chinese character with the most strokes". "This mysterious Chinese character written in 54 strokes is not only the crystallization of Guanzhong people's wisdom, but also an intangible cultural heritage treasure that has not been included in the dictionary but used frequently among the public. It supports the three-thousand-year Qinchuan culture with a bowl of noodles and inherits Chinese people's most romantic imagination of Chinese characters with the food. Colors are visual poetry universally used in the world. Different colors are not only annotations of emotions, but also a glimpse into the narrative of both survival wisdom and life aesthetics in the distant oriental civilization through the complex colors of pictographs," said Huang Fang.

At the end of 2024, Huang Fang submitted his work to the mailbox of the Organizing Committee of the Joseph Binder Award. A few days later, he received an email regarding the shortlisting of his work from the Organizing Committee. From Xi'an, Huang Fang traveled to Vienna, Austria, over ten thousand kilometers away. At the moment the award list was officially announced, amidst the gaze and applause of artists from different nationalities, Huang Fang proudly received the silver award engraved with the name of Xi'an Eurasia University. "After taking such a critical step, we will hold a firmer belief in the imagination or tangible results of future works, and be more brave in the adventure of exploring the boundaries of art," said Huang Fang.

Text by Wei Xiao'ou