At a press conference on Thursday in Beijing, Chinese Zodiac City Weihai, East China's Shandong Province, announced the new campaign to collect brand-new IPs for the Chinese zodiac. Photo: Beijing Design Week

Chinese Zodiac City is recruiting a set of new images for the 12 animals from the public through a cultural and creative campaign in the hopes of attracting more young people to get involved in the traditional Chinese culture.

At a press conference on Thursday in Beijing, Chinese Zodiac City Weihai, East China's Shandong Province, announced the new campaign to collect brand-new IPs for the Chinese zodiac. Photo: Beijing Design Week

At a press conference on Thursday in Beijing, Chinese Zodiac City announced the new campaign to collect brand-new IPs for the Chinese zodiac, or shengxiao in Chinese, which are represented by 12 zodiac animals based on the Chinese calendar.

The campaign is being jointly held by Beijing Design Week and the local government of Weihai, a coastal city in East China's Shandong Province. According to Kang Wenling, an urban renewal expert, the campaign seeks to connect the Chinese zodiac and a special zodiac street in Weihai.

Talking about the coastal city, Kang said that the zodiac street has been "carrying the historical and cultural heritage and life memories of the people in Weihai for decades."

"This street has gathered a variety of artworks including poems, paintings, and folk art depicting zodiac animal images. As young people now hail individuality and pursue self-expression, we felt it necessary that they use their own way to reshape the image of the zodiac, in order to make the cultural identity continue to live," Kang said during the press conference.

"Cultural creation is not only art, but also life. We hope that the designers from the younger generation will reposition the Chinese zodiac and create new images through designs, so that they can be better accepted by more people," Yang Zunjie, a tutor at the School of Urban Design of China Central Academy of Fine Arts and the founder of Zoomer, a design company.

The campaign will collect outstanding works across the country until December 15 2021.

Global Times