Cultural and Creative Design and Development of Rural Tourism from the Perspective of Rural Vitalization: Taking the Design of “Wulin Anecdote” as an Example

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Cultural and Creative Design and Development of Rural Tourism from the Perspective of Rural Vitalization: Taking the Design of

“Wulin Anecdote” as an Example

Lin Shunmei^1*, Zuriawati Ahmad Zahari^1*

1 Universiti Sains Malaysia

*Corresponding Author: [email protected], [email protected] Accepted: 15 March 2022 | Published: 1 April 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajact.2022.4.1.4

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Abstract: From the perspective of rural revitalization, this paper aimed at the cultural and creative design and development of rural tourism, redefined the regional culture of the Wulin Village and developed the integration of the traditional cultural resources and the modern cultural creativity, which also explored new ways of rural tourism cultural and creative design.

Through consulting the relevant materials and visiting the Wulin Village in the field, the author of this paper processed the information in images, conceived and formulated the mainframe, confirmed the design direction, unified the style, and completed the tourism cultural and creative design practice activities for the Wulin Village. Taking the national strategy of “rural revitalization” as the general direction, based on the theme of the traditional Wulin Village in Quanzhou, and through the form of cultural creativity, the cultural values of the Wulin Village were reshaped and the intangible cultural resources were transformed into tangible cultural values so as to promote the public’s new understanding of the countryside and achieve the purpose of cultural transmission.

Keywords: rural revitalization, rural tourism, cultural transmission; cultural and creative design

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1. Introduction

Since the reform and opening up, the rapid development of science and technology, as well as the improvement of the economy, has prompted people to have greater cultural, spiritual, and emotional demands. Rural tourism is one of the ways for people to achieve their spiritual demands. Rural tourism is relatively regional, which has the characteristics of time flexibility and geographical breadth and can meet the travel requirements of different tourists. Making use of its unique resources, rural tourism combines with cultural industries so as to promote rural development. In response to the call of the country’s rural revitalization, the relevant departments actively expanded the new development of Wulin rural revitalization to comply with the modern demands for the tourism market and paper took the cultural and creative display of the Wulin Village as a significant working point so as to rejuvenate the Wulin Village and give the Wulin Village new vitality.

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2. The value and significance of the design and development of tourism cultural and creative products in “Wulin anecdote”

In today’s era of rapid development, people are under high pressure in production and life, who inevitably require a space for emotional release. Thus, they have a stronger willingness to return to the countryside to explore rural tourism resources in the process of urbanization.

Poetry and far-off field are a kind of appeal of contemporary people, and the village is the sustenance to realize their vision. The No. 1 Document in 2021 pointed out that the nation shall comprehensively promote rural revitalization. Rural revitalization is the foundation of national revitalization. The countryside is a regional complicated, which has multiple functions such as life, ecology, and culture. Thus, the rural governments shall follow the national general direction and devote themselves to realizing rural revitalization. More and more people choose rural tourism. Tourism cultural and creative products are the cultural carriers of villages.

Culture is the value guardian of the countryside; culture and creation are the fashionable creation of tourism; the cultural and creative design is the interpretation of the connotation of rural culture.

Most of the rural tourism with the theme of “agritainment” in China limits the cultural content, whose main attraction lies in the lack of special characteristics of tourism cultural and creative products. In order to meet the demands of different tourists, more and more rural tourism products put emphasis on targeted development, which have strong local characteristics and focus on showing the individual characteristics of different subjects, thereby making good achievements. In the development process of designing rural tourism cultural and creative products, the local cultural elements shall be fully excavated, so that tourists can experience the best state and experience the local historical and cultural features.

Wulin traditional villages are located in Quanzhou, Fujian. They originated in Emperor Hongwu’s reign time of the Ming Dynasty, which are the exhibition points of Southern Fujian Ecological Reserve in Jinjiang City. In 2016, they were included in the list of Chinese traditional villages. In 2017, they were developed into the key project in Fujian Province. With the continuous improvement of the scenic functions of the Wulin Village, they have attracted more and more new formats incorporating regional characteristics as well as trendy elements, which present a collision between the old and the new. Thus, how to effectively apply the traditional Wulin Village with the local characteristics to cultural and creative design? The

“Wulin anecdote” design integrates modern design creativity with traditional culture from the perspective of rural revitalization so as to rejuvenate the traditional Wulin Village.

2.1 The value of the design and development of “Wulin anecdote” cultural and creative design

As an ancient village with 99 ancient residences of overseas Chinese, the concept of protecting the Wulin Village is changing. Taking the national strategy of “village revitalization” as the general direction, the Wulin Anecdote Project is based on the theme of the traditional Wulin Village in Quanzhou whose cultural value was reshaped through cultural creativity. Creativity is the core of culture, as well as the cultural and creative IP products. No matter how unique, creative, and beautiful the design of cultural and creative IP products is, the most significant thing is to have an appeal to generate tourists’ impulsion to buy. What Wulin architecture solidifies is history. Cultural resources are limited, but cultural creativity is unlimited. Turning intangible cultural resources into tangible cultural values and combining the activated local culture with the demands for mass cultural consumption just cater to the demands for a cultural

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experience in the era of mass tourism, which promotes traditions and facilitates inheritance and establishes a good image for the Wulin Village. Thereby, promoting the public to have a new understanding of the countryside. All of these build a bridge for cultural transmission.

2.2 The significance of the design and development of “Wulin anecdote” cultural and creative design

As the hometown of overseas Chinese in southern Fujian, what the Wulin Village has recorded is the changes of architectural styles in southern Fujian from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the New China. Its research value is self-evident. Based on the general direction of the national rural revitalization strategy and in the new era of the combination of culture and tourism, this paper takes “Wulin anecdote” as an example to re-examine the value of rural culture from the perspective of cultural creativity. This paper absorbed the essence of concentrated culture, activated and developed valuable resources, and paid attention to the combination of rural culture and modern concepts so as to design works that meet the demands of the public and have the unique connotation of Wulin culture, thereby better meeting the spiritual differentiation demands of contemporary people. Continue the vitality of ancient villages and spreading Chinese characteristic culture are a win-win initiative to attract local cultural attention as well as rural revitalization.

3. Research ideas and characteristics of “Wulin anecdote” tourism cultural and creative product design

3.1 The research ideas of “Wulin anecdote” tourism cultural and creative product design Through the resource collection and data investigation of the project, the design of this project was based on the Wulin Village in Quanzhou, extracted local resources, created materials, designed elements, and confirmed the first draft of Wulin architectural elements so as to accomplish color extraction and logo design, discuss the poster style, confirm the content frame of the main poster, integrate resources to finish the visual information production of Wulin, and accomplish the design of derivative works.

Figure 1: Aerial photography of the Wulin Village (the picture is from the Internet)

The design of this project is based on the three major themes: the traditional ancient dwellings in southern Fujian, Gothic architecture, and ancient Roman architecture. The main elements were extracted from Deyue House, Delong House, Overseas Chinese’s residence, the Five- story House, the Chaodong Building, the ‘Passion for Motherland’ Building, and the Gun

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Tower. This paper visualized resource information and created posters, cultural and creative design works and other materials so as to form unique regional cultural symbols.

Figure 2: Eight buildings (the picture is from the Internet)

Figure 3: Element line art

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Figure 4: Element drawing

3.2 The design features of “Wulin anecdote” tourism cultural and creative products The project is named “Wulin anecdote”, which comes from the homophonic conversion of “My Own Swordsman” (a Chinese situation comedy called “Wulin Waizhuan” in Chinese). It has a high memory point. Besides, it integrates the culture through an “anecdote”, which also reflects the strong inclusiveness of the Wulin Village. Since the Wulin Village is an architectural product of the fusion of Chinese and foreign cultures, the swallowtail ridge with the most southern Fujian style is used as the basis. The landmark “Gun Tower” is taken as the representative of the combination of Chinese and Western cultures to show the harmonious beauty of the Wulin Village. The appearance of the logo is in the shape of “W”, which is the first letter of the Chinese character “Wu” of Wulin, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Identification

The “horizontal” deformation of “Wu Lin” comes from the overall front of the swallowtail ridge eaves of southern Fujian dwellings; the “one stroke to the left and another to the right”

of “Wu Lin” comes from the deformation of the horse’s back ridge; the “口” shape comes from the windows of the western architecture; “outside” (meaning of the Chinese character “外”) is simplified and formed by the side of the swallowtail ridge, as shown in Figure 6.

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Figure 6: Font source

In the project design process, the existing resources of the Wulin Village were used and the elements were selected so as to simplify the design. Besides, the architectural elements were integrated into the poster design, forming a graphic cultural symbol. As a design form of visibility, posters have dual attributes: long-distance viewing and short-distance viewing. In order to ensure both long-distance viewing and short-distance viewing, the combination of graphics and text was used as the main element of the design to convey information and ideas, fully reflecting the charm of the Wulin Village.

The basic building poster mainly adopted the form of an old newspaper with a main building in the middle and a text description with prominent features. The information of the same level was divided into the same area, making the characteristic regional culture displayed in short words and understood fully at a glance. The writing adopted the traditional Song type black body, etc. The lines are straight and the side also shows the masculine and straightforward beauty of the building. The square strip in the middle is derived from the Wulin buildings, which are composed of bricks and surrounded by the traditional lattice window patterns in southern Fujian. In the traditional culture of southern Fujian, the use of lattice windows is various. The most well-known one was selected as the basic decoration, which can bring a sense of intimacy, as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. A well-known one is used as a basic decoration, which brings a sense of intimacy, as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8.

Figure 7: Basic poster (a)

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Figure 8: Basic poster (b)

A tourism poster that is rooted in regional cultural traditions and that is rich in national cultural characteristics can not only reflect the cultural semantics and aesthetic connotation of a nation but also become a significant symbol of a national or regional tourism cultural image. Posters are the design held in hands but the one that is posted outdoors or places and environments that can attract people’s attention. They will be disturbed by the surrounding environment and various factors. Thus, the integrated posters must be displayed in front of people with prominent images and colors. The completed architectural elements are arranged in order, which are marked with the names respectively. The theme logo was placed in the most eye- catching position in the middle so as to deepen the impression. A little Western-style lattice window was added to the edge to embellish the small elements. The arrangement and combination of surrounding elements were the same as the basic poster. Eight elements were integrated into the same poster, the materials were standardized, the intimacy of information was paid attention to, and the visuality of the picture was enhanced. For details, see Figure 9.

Figure 9: Integration poster

The designed colors were extracted from the buildings of the Wulin Village, red, green and blue were designed as the mainly colors, with skin color as the background color, forming an old book style. Red has been considered as a symbol of auspiciousness and joy since ancient times. It is considered as optimistic, enthusiastic, and contagious. The most significant style color of the Wulin Village, which is dominated by traditional houses in southern Fujian, is red, which conveys the cultural value of the Wulin Village. In traditional Chinese culture, green means life, which symbolizes youth and prosperity and means that the Wulin Village is moving towards the road of sustainable development. Blue gives people a feeling of mystery, which represents depth, leading people to explore the endless depths。 It also provides people with the motivation to explore rural tourism. The color of the skin means that the Wulin Village is as flexible and elastic as young skin, which gives people a vibrant atmosphere and shows the determination to actively explore the culture of the Wulin Village.

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Figure 10: Color

As the theme of the project, the Wulin Village covers a very wide range. From the initial positioning to the completion, the design has been exploring the different beauty of the Wulin Village. How to extract effective information from many cultural resources is a big challenge for the project development, which is also a significant keynote for the subsequent cultural creativity that highlights the characteristics of the design.

The information visualization chart belongs to a design of visual communication, which is a visual communication method that uses a concise, intuitive, and clear visual language to construct graphics through sorting out information, constructing symbols through graphics, and analyzing information in a visual logical language.

Information visualization continues the style of posters, which conveys abstract information in an intuitive way and visualizes representative architectural information in the form of visual information that is most acceptable to the public. The local characteristic display on the map is another repetition of the information, which is integrated and clear. Through the narrative of the history of each building, such as design forms a way of interaction and transmission with the audience. In this way, the traditional culture and art can keep up with the pace of the times, as shown in Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, and Figure 14.

Figure 11: Information visualization poster (a)

Figure 12: Information visualization poster (b)

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Figure 13: Information visualization poster (c)

Figure 14: Information visualization poster (d)

On the basis of the existing information visualization poster, the text, pictures, and sound effects were integrated into a small animation video in the design. As a medium for cultural transmission, short videos are considered more diversified, which can meet the demands of modern people. The complicated design elements were displayed in an intuitive way in the form of information visualization. The content of the information visualization chart was dynamic with simple lines interspersed and a relaxed and smooth rhythm, which formed a two- dimensional code. They broadened the communication channels, which not only provided the audience with a good visual experience but also ensured that while the audience watching easily and smoothly, they would be impressed deeply about Wulin information. It is easy to achieve fission-type communication.

The feature of the video is that it can be accompanied through real-time sound information so that the video can show the historical buildings more three-dimensionally and vividly, making the design poster of the movement flexible. It uses the dynamic information image to describe the Wulin creatively so that the Wulin culture can be seen as “vivid”. To watch the video, just scan the code as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15: Information visualization video (scan the code to watch)

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In order to make the design of “Wulin anecdote” leave people a deep impression in the increasingly populous cultural and creative market, this project took advantage of the current popularity of “mystery box economy” and combined posters with puzzles. It innovated the form of mystery boxes and extracted unknown styles, bringing a strong experience to the public. The value of this sense of surprise is far greater than the mystery box itself, which has become one of the most powerful ways to attract tourists and which can spread the cultural characteristics of the Wulin Village and realize the organic unity of rural tourism as well as cultural creativity.

Nowadays, when the consumer market is changing, young people have become the main force of consumption, whose willingness to consume is stronger. They focus on personalized consumption. The new type of tourism group has the characteristics of active ideas, strong awareness of accepting new ideas, rich modern Internet thinking, and jumping out of common sense. Thus, if interesting features can be displayed in cultural and creative products, it is possible to enter the public eye by means of attracting the attention of interested groups. The design poster is made into a mystery box and rural culture and modern fashion trends are integrated so as to achieve an interactive form of rural tourism. The puzzle mystery box not only meets the demands for fashion consumption but also focuses on the game preferences of the public, which is suitable for people of all ages. It directly resonates with the audience on the cultural value and spiritual core, forms an emotional link, and promotes Wulin rural culture to be propagandized abroad.

Figure 16: Perimeter of the mystery box puzzle (a)

Figure 17: The periphery of the mystery box puzzle (b)

In addition to the innovative mystery box’s puzzle peripheral design, there is also a practical canvas bag. Although the cultural and creative canvas bag is simple, its versatile matching concept attracts people of all ages and both genders. It is fashionable and lightweight, which is deeply loved by the majority of female friends. The biggest feature of the canvas bag is that it is light and simple. There is no publicized design style, but a low-key and casual atmosphere,

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making this single product indispensable in the fast-paced fashion life. It has become a cultural label for walking to carry the canvas bag with Wulin cultural and creative characteristics, which is a commemorative carrier for the dissemination of Wulin rural culture and creates a new path for display.

Figure 18: Around the canvas bag

4. Conclusion

Rural tourism is a new field of rural revitalization. The integration of rural tourism and cultural tourism meets the individual demands of people to return to the nature, which uses the unique cultural resources of the countryside to attract more and more tourists. This paper aims to use art to stimulate the vitality of the countryside to empower the countryside and assist the country in developing the countryside. Through the new cultural production method of “village + cultural creativity”, it is necessary to focus on the soul of regional characteristics and lead regional cultural creativity. As is the traction of rural culture, literary creation stimulates the rural atmosphere, making the sleeping rural resources “live”.

As the business card carrier of the Wulin Village, the cultural and creative design of “Wulin anecdote” selectively integrated local characteristics, which used the power of culture to regenerate the Wulin Village, showing the unity of history, culture and art and making them known to the whole country and the world.

References

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