Press Release
Constructing The Intangible Conceptual Illustration by Yuanying He Is Granted the A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
Yuanying He acknowledged for graphics, illustration and visual communication design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 16, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Constructing The Intangible Conceptual Illustration by Yuanying He, designed for K3ntiv3, has been granted the A' Design Award in the Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design category. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The A' Design Award Explained
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
About Constructing The Intangible Conceptual Illustration
Constructing the Intangible explores memory as a process of reconstruction rather than preservation. Inspired by the ephemeral scent of childhood pomelo flowers, the work employs architectural elements such as cranes, grids, and misaligned stairs to visualize the structure of recollection. Memory is presented as an active act of assembling fragments of the past to construct present identity. Through a restrained structural language, the piece transforms an intangible sensory experience into a visible spatial form.
About Yuanying He
Yuan is a graphic designer working across brand identity, editorial design, and visual illustration. Their practice translates personal observations and sensory experiences, including memory, scent, and fleeting urban moments, into structured visual systems. Drawing on architectural metaphors and digital illustration, Yuan develops visual languages at the intersection of perception, narrative, and design. Their process is grounded in close observation of everyday life: counting passers-by, noticing transient details, and documenting small urban scenes. Through this method, Yuan transforms the intangible into visible, systematic form.
Award Record
Yuanying He is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Award
The A' Graphic Design Award is an international graphic design competition recognizing good graphic designs by best creative agencies and designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to graphic designers, communication designers, graphic artists and illustrators from all countries. Typical entries include logos, posters, infographics, brochures, packaging designs and business cards. The awarded graphic designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/graphics
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/181673
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/181673
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!181673
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/375774
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Constructing The Intangible Conceptual Illustration
- Function
- Conceptual Illustration
- Category
- Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Branding & Advertising and Arts
- Colors
- Lavender, Light Blue, Wheat, Cornflower Blue and Light Steel Blue
- Images
- 5
- Client
- K3ntiv3
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Yuanying He
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #181673
Credits
- Image Credits
- All visual elements, illustrations, and conceptual content in this project are original works created solely by the artist. No third-party materials, stock images, templates, or external visual assets were used in the creation of this work.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Constructing the Intangible explores the architecture of memory. This artwork examines how sensory fragments, specifically the ephemeral scent of the past, are reorganized. Memory is presented not as static preservation, but as an active secondary rendering shaped by narrative coherence. Utilizing a structural language bridging nature and architecture, the design transforms intangible sensory experiences into visible forms. Past fragments serve as scaffolding to support selfhood.
- Inspiration
- The inspiration originated from a simple observation: describing a dream after waking is already an act of secondary representation and reconstruction. The cool scent of pomelo blossoms from childhood serves as a sensory anchor. This fleeting memory is deconstructed into an orderly “construction site”. Cranes, grids, and misaligned staircases symbolize the subtle imperfections and ongoing rebuilding inherent in human recollection.
- Research
- This project explores autobiographical memory reconstruction through visual metaphor. Drawing from narrative identity theory and cognitive psychology, it investigates how memory is not a fixed recording but an active reconstruction shaped by perception and storytelling. Olfactory memory, particularly childhood scent associations, serves as an anchoring mechanism to translate intangible sensory recall into spatial and architectural language.
- Challenge
- The primary challenge was translating an invisible and ephemeral sensory experience into a coherent spatial structure. The work avoids literal representation of scent and instead constructs a layered architectural system to express memory reconstruction. Balancing structural precision with emotional ambiguity required careful control of composition, grid systems, and visual hierarchy.
- Realization and Technology
- The artwork was created using digital illustration techniques. A structured grid-based composition system was applied to organize spatial elements. Layered vector and raster rendering methods were combined to achieve depth and architectural precision. The visual system references drafting language and construction schematics to reinforce the conceptual framework.
- Operation and Interaction
- The viewer engages with the artwork through visual navigation. Misaligned staircases, cranes, and grid structures guide the eye toward a central focal point, mirroring the cognitive process of memory reconstruction. The interaction is interpretive rather than functional, inviting reflection rather than instruction.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project was conceptualized and completed in February 2026 in Shenzhen, China.
- Specifications
- High-resolution digital artwork. Dimensions: 3600 x 3600 pixels. Color space: RGB. Format: Digital illustration suitable for print and screen display.
- Keywords
- memory reconstruction, olfactory memory, architectural metaphor, narrative identity, secondary construction, spatial abstraction, sensory memory, autobiographical memory
