Sticking to creativity for Lunar New Year with Jiya Ren and Katherine Wu

The Lunar New Year is one of the most important festivals in Chinese culture, a time to joyfully gather with family, bid farewell to the past year, and welcome a new beginning. To ring in the Year of the Snake, SCAD invited two advertising students, Jiya Ren (M.A. advertising) and Katherine Wu (M.A. advertising), to create a limited edition sticker set inspired by traditional Chinese elements.

Ren’s keen eye for detail and Wu’s logical approach to design led to a product where complex ideas are made simple and engaging. The duo’s complementary strengths are reflected through their intricate and collaborative design process.

“For this project, we discussed the direction and content of the sticker set together to ensure consistency in style and theme across the series,” Ren and Wu said.

Ren and Wu drew inspiration from Chinese couplets, or essential literary symbols of blessings and well wishes for the new year. The two selected 12 Chinese idioms as the textual basis for the sticker designs, incorporating snakes, traditional decorations, and SCAD references as visual components arranged on a red diamond background.

“Through creative design, we aimed to share this traditional culture with the global SCAD community in a modern, digital format. We chose stickers as our medium because they express emotions in a fun, casual way that aligns with how young people communicate on social platforms today,” the design duo said.

Taking the phrase “Welcome spring and fortune” as an example from the sticker set, the couplet signifies the arrival of a new season filled with blessings. SCAD designs, like the bee and the honeycomb, are incorporated to bridge the traditional and modern elements. Here, a key symbolizes unlocking both a bright new year and your creative potential at SCAD.

“As emerging designers, we can extract core elements from traditional cultures — such as patterns, colors, and symbols — and simplify them through modern design to enhance their visual impact,” they said. “Through cross-cultural integration, we can create works that feature both Chinese characteristics and global appeal, helping traditional culture find new life in modern design.”

Even Ren and Wu’s process illustrates the beauty found in combining seemingly dissonant components, as the two learned how to integrate not only contemporary and modern design, but also each other’s individual styles.

“The process deepened our understanding that design isn’t just creative expression — it’s an important tool for cultural exchange,” Ren and Wu said. 

Ren and Wu advise future SCAD students interested in cultural creative fields to deeply understand and appreciate traditional cultural core values and draw inspiration from them for innovation. 

“Pay attention to global design trends, cultivate an international perspective to broaden creative thinking, and actively participate in real projects to continuously improve your professional skills and cultural sensitivity through practice,” they said.

With the 2025 Chinese Lunar New Year approaching, Ren and Wu reflected fondly on their Spring Festival experiences at SCAD. Though they are accustomed to gathering with their families at home, they discovered a warm international student community at SCAD devoted to heartfelt celebration and cultural exchange.

“We celebrate by gathering with other international students and friends, sharing traditional foods like mooncakes and tangyuan to maintain the festive atmosphere. We connect with family through video calls to feel the warmth of home. Through these ways, we can experience the traditional festival atmosphere even while studying abroad,” Ren and Wu said.

Like Ren and Wu, first-year student Shan Huang (B.F.A. animation) found her community through SCAD Savannah’s Chinese Student Association (CSA), drawn to the club’s emphasis on Chinese culture.

“I appreciate that the CSA helps to promote Chinese culture to the SCAD community. As someone very passionate about my culture, I wanted to be a part of that. ,” Huang said.

This year, SCAD International Student Service Office (ISSO) and CSA are jointly hosting a vibrant Lunar New Year "Year of the Snake" celebration in Savannah on Saturday, Feb. 1, from 2:00-6:00 p.m., at Arnold Hall, fostering unity within the global community. This event is free and open to all SCAD card holders.

As we welcome the Year of Snake, SCAD wishes everyone good fortune and abundant inspiration!

To learn more about life at SCAD, visit https://www.scad.edu/life.

Written by Wei Zhang (M.F.A. advertising); Kendall McKinnon (B.F.A., writing, 2021)