Color, light crosses cultural barriers

"I think what we have done with this design is, we can't help being influenced by our own background, our own landscape, our own country here in Australia. But as designers, we can identify internationally with the way things should feel and the way things should look," said Henderson.

Henderson also shared his experience about cooperating with Chinese designers, as designers have a way of working together where language is not a problem, he said, "as a big listener, I get on very well with Chinese designers. I think Chinese designers are unbelievable, you're creating your own particular style. I really love it. I like to be associated with that sort of energy."

"We work on the sort of shape, color and feeling. I think that's probably for me the most satisfying part of working with Chinese designers and Chinese clients," said Henderson.

"Chinese design and Chinese fashion have now got their own look, it's not copying anything anymore, it's creating its own. I think that's a fantastic thing, the confidence, what I would call 'China pride', in what you can do," Henderson expressed his appreciation of this kind of maturity and confidence brought by Chinese designers and their ideas, as he said, "I think Chinese design is moving into a completely new era."

"I just love the way that the passion of sport and the effort that goes into being a champion is connected with art and design. Because I think the body is a piece of design," said Henderson.

For the organizing committee, combining design, art, culture, and sport together is a really great thing, "I wish that the Asian Games will absolutely be numero uno," said Henderson.

Besides Henderson's poster, another 37 posters of the Asian Games have also been exhibited. They were carefully selected from a total of 1,789 posters by designers who came from Asia, Europe, America, Oceania, etc.

According to Bi Xuefeng, Dean of the School of Design Art of China Academy of Art, three standards of evaluation were put into consideration when choosing the posters, including the generality of the poster's theme, the creativity to express the sports spirit, the artistic expression and visual experience.

Bi hopes that the poster design exhibition can get more people to pay attention to the Asian Games. "The poster exhibition is also a social aesthetic education, which can give the public a new understanding of visual art and poster art, and I hope to bring a new perspective to everyone's aesthetic experience," Bi added.

Fang Xiaoying in Hangzhou contributed to this story.