XINYU LI
Visual Designer
Other Islands Muesum
Brand Identity, Motion Design, Merchandise Design
Visual Designer
About Playground
xīn is my visual identity, drawn from the Chinese character for heart, core, and feeling. As a visual communicator, I create hand-drawn symbols that fuse graffiti energy with emotional depth—celebrating chaos, color, and imperfection.
At Brooklyn Botanic Garden, we dissolve the boundaries between nature and urbanity by revealing plants as architects of ecological revolution. As an action platform for urban ecological symbiosis, we catalyze the practice and imagination of a sustainable future through science, art, and community collaboration.
Other Islands Museum is a creative hub where design connects people and ideas. Through immersive exhibitions and innovative programs, the museum breaks down barriers and brings diverse individuals together. Focused on building bridges through design.
Each book, like an island, is a unique world with its own story and perspective. Using the irregular, natural forms of the font, the visuals convey the organic diversity and individuality of these "islands." At the same time, the design creates connections between these distinct elements, symbolizing the role of the exhibition in bridging ideas, cultures, and experiences.
This magazine uses humor to explore self-expression in bathroom graffiti and uncover the gender dynamics in public restroom design. Why does toilet humor persist across generations? What do graffiti reveal about society's hidden psyche? By examining these questions, I delve into the unseen culture of toilet spaces and challenge the idea of their unchanging nature.
This project reinterprets 19th and 20th-century poems through the lens of queer ecology, transforming language and form to challenge normative ideas of identity and nature. It begins with queer voices reading these poems, generating sound-based visualizations that evolve into digital sculptures of mythical creatures.
Using a laser cutter, I further alter the original text, turning words into abstract shapes that question linguistic norms. The final outcome is a poetry book where words, sounds, and sculptural forms merge, offering a multi-sensory exploration of queerness, language, and the fluid boundaries between the natural and the imagined.
This book starts with a discussion on cultural appropriation and gradually unfolds to explore how designers understand their identity and practice, and how they connect with the communities around them through design.
The content is divided into four parts, each beginning with a concrete example, like the starting point of a journey. This book is more like an open dialogue, inviting readers to rethink the meaning of design and our relationship with the world around us.