Perhaps we have never seen the same blue — Graphic Design Youyou Luo

Youyou Luo

“Perhaps we have never seen the same blue.”
“ 或许我们从未见过同一种蓝。”

2026

Poster Design

Client: Mach Platz
Tutor: Jiri Oplatek, Michael Renner
Photo: Haoze Xue, Qingyan Hu

Among the many advertising posters that occupy the streets of Basel, the project invited 20 students to create posters that neither advertise nor promote, but instead reflect on the role of democracy in public space.

My contribution explores democracy as the ability to listen, collaborate, and accept perspectives different from our own. This reflection led to the quote, “Perhaps we have never seen the same blue,” which forms the central typographic element of the poster. The quote appears in Simplified Chinese, accompanied by English and German translations.

The color blue acts as a metaphor for individual perception. Even two people standing side by side may not experience the same blue in exactly the same way, yet both perspectives can coexist. The poster's main image is an abstract blue scan. Rather than removing the scratches, dust, and fingerprints left by previous users, I preserved these traces as evidence of many individual presences, allowing different experiences to remain visible within a shared space.

The posters are designed with combination of analogue and digital materials, and plot printed in Weltformat/World Format.

在巴塞尔街头林立的各类商业广告海报中，该项目邀请了20名学生进行创作；这些海报不用于商业宣传或推广，而是旨在探讨民主在公共空间中的角色。

我的海报参与探讨了民主的本质 ----倾听、协作以及接纳与自身不同的观点。这一思考引出了“或许我们从未见过同于种蓝。”这句话，并将其作为海报设计的核心元素。该引言以简体中文呈现，并附有英语和德语译文。

蓝色在此被用作个人感知的隐喻。即使两个人并肩而立，对同一种蓝色的感知也未必完全相同，但这两种视角却可以共存。海报的主题图像是一副抽象的蓝色扫描影像。我没有去除扫描仪经过多年使用留下的划痕、灰尘或指纹，而是保留了这些痕迹，以此作为众多个人存在过的见证，让不同的体验得以在共享空间中呈现。

海报以Weltformat（世界标准海报尺寸）喷绘打印，于2026年7月在巴塞尔城市街头展出。