All those who work in the field of arts may have some sort of special attachment to paper. In information age, more and more paper products have been replaced by digital ones, with books becoming e-books and mails becoming e-mails, which brings paper a retro sense as a kind of texture. Hara Kenya, the famous Japanese designer has written about paper in many of his books such as “Designing Design and Shiro.” According to him, paper is not only a carrier of information, but also an embodiment of the value of human emotion.

Not long ago, some of my illustrations for the BDWM BBS cover were printed as postcards and sold on campus. The great success of these postcards has made me realize the new potential brought about by traditional artworks. It is because of this trend that several friends of mine who share the same idea with me founded PaperBar Studio.

In the history of PKU, PaperBar was the first design studio founded with only one designer as its core workforce. Therefore we faced so many problems ahead of us that we could only grope our way to solve them. For example we thought out three solutions to improve the operation of the studio. The first was to work as a service provider to design for clients, but this idea was given up since we only had one designer in our team. The second one was to design a unique character just like Paul Frank and Ali the Fox, and then launch a side-line range of products. Although this method could relieve a lot of pressure shouldered by the designer, its outcome to a large extent depended on marketing, and it was hard to win loyal customers before the designed character was widely known to the public. The third one was to launch designed products set by set. Although a little bit hard to build a big name, it was relatively easy for our team to operate since we are beginners. We adopted this method eventually so as to constantly learn and grow while launching each set of products and gain valuable experience for future development.

For the past six months, PaperBar studio launched four sets of products. The first two were postcards of BDWM BBS cover illustrations of mine. They widely received favorable comments thanks to the large group of BBS users. Many students in Peking University said that these paintings, preserved as part of their memory of PKU, were both meaningful souvenirs and gifts[[ to send to friends.

The third and fourth series went beyond postcards and moved forward to thread-bound notebooks. We even utilized the microfilm with the same title Painting Weiming to expand our marketing and sales. While PaperBar studio has gradually come to enjoy its fame at PKU, our team matured as we accumulated much more experience in production, promotion, sales and cooperation. Even a professor from the PKU History Museum contacted me to preserve several sets of postcards for the museum, which could serve as a part of documentation to record the campus cultural history.

Currently we are still thinking about the development strategy of the PaperBar studio in the future. The strengthened regulation on cash trade, the saturated market of postcards on campus, and the demand of labor to handle the online trade  have become the  imperative issues we face now. Meanwhile, the teamwork also needs to be coordinated as our core members are about to graduate and face increasing pressure from studies and career.

 We have no clear idea what PaperBar will end up as. Will it be a start-up project? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no for the near future. A start-up incubated on campus will never be successful unless the “entrepreneur” can concentrate wholeheartedly on his project and resist the temptation of numerous choices in college life which might be a great hindrance. However, the experience we gained from running the studio is  great treasure for us. So we hope PaperBar can be a platform for those who really have some concrete ideas to experiment and carry out their great plans. In this way, when he walked out of the campus and looked back at his college life, he would be grateful to have this piece of paper which had enriched his world.

Written by Gai Meng (Wolfwind)
 Translated by Li Feiyue

Updated by June 5,2014