This project is a digital poster about the traditional Chinese Qixi Festival (China's Valentine's Day), created for the social media account of CICG Asia-pacific. This project was initiated as part of my design responsibilities during my social media internship. I was assigned to produce the content to promote Chinese culture for the organization's social media campaign. The deliverable was a visually appealing poster that combined visual storytelling with introductory text.
My Role
As the designer, I was responsible for concept development, illustration composition, copywriting, color palette design, and final layout. I used Canva to make this poster, as I am most familiar with this platform. My goal was to achieve a balance between traditional culture and contemporary visual appeal. I completed this project in August 2025 before the Qixi Festival and over the course of two days.
Concept & Problem & Goal
The challenge was to promote traditional Chinese festivals to the global audience. I needed to introduce what Qixi Festival is on this poster briefly, but without adding too much text to affect the visual effect. I hope to have an attractive visual that conveys a romantic feeling while also showing a unique aspect of Chinese culture. Therefore, I chose illustrations of people in traditional costumes as the theme of the poster. The ultimate goal is to show the mythical history behind this festival and the emotions people have towards this festival.
My goal was to design a poster that visually represented the beauty of reunion and love in Chinese mythology. From a professional goal, I believe that this poster will also ensure that it is cross-culturally readable and visually appealing in order to achieve the business goal of increasing views and collections.
Design Process
The creative process began with the mythical love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. The lovers are only allowed to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when magpies form a bridge for them to cross. I wanted the poster to express this romantic story. Early sketches explored various compositions as I was initially torn on whether to focus on the bridge or the couple. After trying different layouts, I chose a diagonal composition that leads the viewer's eyes upward toward X. Not only does this create more aesthetic appeal, but it also symbolizes connection. The main colors I chose were dark blue, purple, and pink, as I felt these colors create a romantic atmosphere. The illustration of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl embracing each other perfectly interprets love, and the magpies surrounding them emphasize romance. I chose to use both Chinese and English fonts for the title to enhance the core of cross-cultural. During the design process, I constantly adjusted the layout and colors to achieve the most perfect effect.
I changed the layout to fit more text, and I moved the character to the right of the center to make the pattern elements blend in better. Also, I adjusted the gradient to perfectly show romantic tone.
Final Work & Result
The final poster shows the lovers' (Cowherd and Weaver Girl) embrace on the magpie bridge under the moon, and surrounded by dynamic flow and moonlight. It successfully conveyed a love story across distances and attracted a global digital audience. After the poster was completed, I sent it to my internship mentor, and based on her feedback, this project won praise from the leader. Moreover, it also received positive interaction and feedback from the audience after its release, effectively achieving the goal of cross-cultural communication.