Research on the application of zodiac culture in cultural and creative design

. As an excellent traditional culture of our country, the twelve zodiac signs have been constantly updated and changed by many skilled craftsmen since ancient times. Today, the zodiac culture still occupies an important position in the design field. This time, we will sort out the changes in the graphical representation of the zodiac from ancient times to the present, and explore new and interesting and unique representations by comparing the graphical representations of the zodiac from ancient to modern times, and add the meaning of the year of the zodiac and auspicious idioms to assist in the research of graphics. Add more new ideas, and finally show them in the form of cultural and creative design.


Introduction
This thesis will sort out the generation and background of the zodiac culture, discuss the graphicization of the zodiac culture, and also explore the application of the zodiac culture in cultural and creative design, and carry out design practice with the assistance of theory-LOGO and IP design of the year of the zodiac And related creative design. Combining the zodiac with idioms with auspicious meanings, the unique creative design of the zodiac graphics is carried out, and the unique cognition of the year of the zodiac is deepened through the cooperation of LOGO and IP image.

Origin and background of zodiac culture
The twelve zodiac signs, also known as the zodiac signs, are the twelve animals in China and the twelve earthly branches that match the year of a person's birth, including rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmengsuihudi, Hubei and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu, a relatively complete zodiac system existed in the pre-Qin period. The earliest document handed down to record the twelve zodiac signs that are the same as modern ones is "Lunheng" written by Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The twelve zodiac signs are the vivid representatives of the twelve Earthly Branches, namely Zi (rat), Chou (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (Dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei ( Sheep), Shen (monkey), unitary (chicken), Xu (dog), and Hai (pig), with the development of history, gradually merged into the folk belief concept of mutual generation and restraint, which is manifested in marriage, life, year luck, etc., each The zodiac signs have rich legends, which form a conceptual interpretation system and become the image philosophy in folk culture, such as the zodiac signs in marriage, prayers at temple fairs, and the year of birth. In modern times, more and more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and the symbol of entertainment and cultural activities. As a long-standing folk cultural symbol, the zodiac has left a large number of poems, spring couplets, paintings, calligraphy and painting and folk crafts depicting the image and symbolic meaning of the zodiac. In addition to China, many countries around the world issue zodiac stamps during the Spring Festival to express their blessings for the Chinese New Year.

Evolution and development of zodiac graphics
There are many theories about the origin of the graphics of the zodiac, among which there is a saying that the zodiac evolved from a totem. The ancestors of the primitive society often used the figure of some kind of animal, inanimate or natural phenomenon as the guardian deity and symbol of the clan, that is, the totem. The mixed images of man and beast in "Shan Hai Jing" are the totem gods in ancient times. The totems of the Xia clan are bears or fish, the totems of the Shang clan are black birds, and the totems of the Zhou clan include dragons, birds, turtles, dogs, and tigers. The twelve zodiac signs, except the dragon, which is an illusion, are all visible in daily life. It can be divided into two categories, namely "six animals" (horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs) and "six beasts" (rats, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes and monkeys). The former are domesticated by people for economic purposes, while the latter harass human life to a certain extent. An animal that our ancestors feared. Therefore, these animals are worshiped as the name marks of the clan. At the same time, the zodiac signs are also related to time, referring to the living habits of animals; the twelve zodiac signs closely correspond to the twelve earthly branches, and the order of the zodiac signs is arranged clockwise from the rat to the pig.

Application of contemporary zodiac elements
The contemporary use of the elements of the zodiac is generally on souvenirs, and the combination of the zodiac and the year will produce many unique souvenirs of that era. Among them, zodiac stamps, coins, and precious metals have become new favorites for collection. Famous artists create new zodiac art products, and zodiac folk crafts are introduced. Zodiac belief, combined with Chinese traditional religious philosophy and magic culture, supplemented by the association of zodiac animal temperament, forms an imaginative belief system, which in turn affects people's concepts and behaviors. The core is that the zodiac determines the people and things it marks. effect. Zodiac culture, as a traditional Chinese culture, has a very sufficient contemporary folk market, and gradually possesses modern aesthetic elements in the continuous derivation, so the zodiac elements are widely used in contemporary times.

Research on the status quo of cultural
and creative design 2.1 Background of contemporary cultural and creative design Cultural and creative industries emerged in developed countries in the 1990s and prevailed in the 21st century. Cultural and creative products are an important part of the cultural and creative industry. With culture as the core, cultural content is transformed into design elements, and modern science and technology, production methods, and modern design thinking are combined to create products that meet modern aesthetics, New products that meet people's spiritual needs. In today's increasingly global commercialization, the importance of culture is gradually being emphasized along with the development of economic power. Relying on their rich cultural resources, some museums in the world have developed and designed a series of cultural and creative products that meet the needs of the public and have cultural spirit, historical significance and artistic value. At the same time, some small cultural and creative studios have also begun to rise. Room brand culture has developed a series of distinctive cultural and creative products.

Problems in cultural and creative design
Some cultural and creative products have the problem of homogeneity and lack of new ideas. The core of cultural and creative products is design, and cultural and creative products that lack creativity and design are difficult to achieve long-term development. Some designers simply copy and paste existing cultural elements, often resulting in cookie-cutter keychains, bookmarks, pillows and other souvenirs. Such cultural and creative products inevitably make people question the lack of creativity and sincerity, and it is difficult to meet the needs of consumers. . The cultural and creative industry has developed rapidly in recent years, but many cultural and creative design products have a lot in common, they are constantly imitating and repeating, and there are not many substantial innovations. When designing cultural and creative products, we must always take the design concept of promoting traditional culture as the key support point of cultural and creative product design, always closely follow the design theme of culture, and take the promotion of traditional Chinese culture as the starting point of design. Find breakthroughs and innovations in design methods and material selection, break the inherent design thinking, and choose design materials of many different materials to pursue the most original cultural connotation of design. At the same time, we must also take into account the aesthetics of the design, accurately understand the needs of the modern market, so that the viewers can have both spiritual influence and visual enjoyment.

Market research on cultural and creative products
3.1 Demand analysis of cultural and creative products When contemporary consumers choose cultural and creative products, they prefer light cultural and creative products such as food, accessories, and stationery. Among all cultural and cultural relics cultural and creative product categories, the three most popular categories are creative food, jewelry accessories, and home decorations. . The combination of cultural creativity and daily life of cultural relics units has become the starting point. It is worth noting that for some traditional tourist souvenirs, such as travel supplies, dolls and toys, the common people have already experienced a certain degree of aesthetic fatigue, and their interest is not high. At the same time, in the general impression, Chinese people's requirements for commodities are "high quality and low price". However, through investigation, we found that when ordinary people choose the cultural and creative products of cultural relics units, they first consider quality, design and interest, sense of history, beauty and taste. However, the emphasis on low price and practical life is not high. This shows that compared with ordinary commodities on the market, ordinary people have relatively higher expectations for cultural and cultural heritage units, and they are more inclined to cultural and creative values in their purchasing psychology. In order to pursue a more beautiful, interesting and high-quality life, Willing to pay more money. After visiting the cultural and creative stores of cultural and cultural relic units, most of the consumers' overall feelings about the cultural and creative stores are average, and most of the evaluations are "it's okay" and "it can be better". The location of the store and the cultural and creative atmosphere of the store itself need to be upgraded on the current basis, and the creation of space atmosphere and shopping convenience should be improved.

Domestic cultural and creative design trends
When it comes to domestic cultural and creative industries, one must think of the Forbidden City, Disney, and Kumamoto Prefecture. The huge IP of the Forbidden Citythat is, intellectual property ownership or intellectual property ownership-has promoted the rapid development of the entire cultural and creative industry of the museum. There are countless cultural and creative products themed on the Forbidden City on Taobao. The sales and total turnover of offline stores It remains high, and cultural and creative products are extremely popular; as one of the few large-scale entertainment and media companies in the world, Disney continues to launch various products in cooperation with different brands, such as clothes, moon cakes, and Liushen toilet water with Disney packaging, etc. etc.; Kumamon bear is a mascot that has been very popular and loved by people from all over the world in recent years. The economic development of Kumamoto Prefecture in recent years cannot do without the development and promotion of Kumamon bear, a doll mascot. China has a profound cultural background in the design of cultural and creative products. Today, we can recognize the power of culture as a very important productive force that can play an important role in education. It can also guide people with cultural feelings and certain cultural values to consume, so as to promote the development of cultural and creative industries. From this perspective, the economic benefits produced by the cultural and creative industries cannot be ignored, and must be taken seriously. Tourism cultural and creative products need to choose the appropriate culture for certain development and design. It is necessary to choose elements that are in line with the local social and folk characteristics. Among them, it is relatively possible to choose the most famous local elements. Peking Opera is a well-known feature of Beijing that is famous all over the world. Peking Opera facial makeup is well-known in my country. Peking Opera facial makeup contains specific information, witnesses the development of history, and has accumulated a lot of historical details. Therefore, when developing and designing products based on Peking Opera facial makeup, we must be brave enough to develop the characteristic information in it, so as to show the cultural characteristics of traditional Chinese art. It is also necessary to make it clear that the attributes of the products produced are young and fashionable.

Research on Cultural and Creative Design
Innovation Innovation in cultural and creative design is an important principle of product design and development. Innovation and development can continuously inject new vitality into the development of products, and at the same time, it is also the fusion of traditional culture and fashion culture. Take the cultural and creative design of the Forbidden City as an example: the cultural and creative products of the Forbidden City are rooted in the Forbidden City's culture, and incorporate fashion elements and technological elements to meet the needs of consumers. Products that combine traditional crafts with high-tech are more likely to attract consumers ' attention power to stimulate consumers' desire to buy. At the same time, cultural and creative design needs to rely on the excellent traditional culture with Chinese characteristics for innovation, so that traditional culture can still have rich connotations and modern designs in modern times.

Application examples of zodiac elements in cultural and creative design 4.1 Design Concept
The design for the year of the zodiac this time is mainly divided into the LOGO design of the zodiac year, the IP image design corresponding to the LOGO, the expression package related to the IP image, and the extended application design of the LOGO. The most important thing is the zodiac LOGO design, so in the first half of this course, a lot of training was done on the deformation and theme application of animals and graphics. The selected zodiac year is 2022 next year, and the zodiac is the tiger.
In the design, it is necessary to show both the zodiac and the unique design of 2022. On top of that, there must be a certain auspicious meaning to cater to the design theme. , In addition to the expression of the main object, idioms are also added to design the LOGO. The IP image should be designed to match the LOGO, consistent in color and style; the emoticon package is more for daily use; the extended design of Wenchuang chose red envelopes and Spring Festival stickers with Chinese New Year flavor Related designs have been carried out.

Zodiac year LOGO design
In the design, the number of 2022 was used to carry out the overall design of the LOGO. Associating with the digital shape of 2022, I finally chose to combine 2022 with animal tigers and butterflies, and used the representative characteristic parts of tigers -tail wrapping In the form of the number 2, and through the use of the pattern on the body of the tiger to show the feeling of the tiger, the specific design process is shown in Picture 1.
The follow-up 022 uses a butterfly with auspiciousness and good luck since ancient times, and transforms it into the number 022 through the pattern on the butterfly's body and the shape of its wings. At the same time, the combination of tiger tail and butterfly wings shows the meaning of the idiom icing on the wings, adding a touch to the connotation of the zodiac LOGO. And using the unique products of the new year as the carrier, the LOGO is integrated into the cultural and creative design of the year of the zodiac, and the effect shown is shown in Picture 2.

Conclusion
This time, through the cultural and creative design of the year of the zodiac, we explored the cultural expression of the zodiac under the modern trend, further explored the fun of the zodiac graphics and the diversification of the zodiac graphics, and also explored the excellence of the new era. The redesign and application of traditional culture. Through vivid and interesting cultural and creative design, the zodiac culture conforms to the aesthetic trend of the contemporary public, and deepens the public's cognition and love for the zodiac culture.