YY-LAB

YING YUAN
Creative Direction · Visual Communication · Material Thinking

Ying Yuan works across visual communication, material thinking, and creative research.
Her practice focuses on translating complex ideas, processes, and emotional narratives into clear visual systems, physical outcomes, and communicable formats.

Through projects spanning garments, spatial installations, and digital media, she explores how form, material, and storytelling can shape audience experience across different contexts.

Fashion

Knits

Cross-disciplinary

Collaboration

Skills

Enjoy Dopamine
Moveable Bones
The Shape of Water
Trace
Timeless Transit
3D Carving
TouchDesigner

Enjoy Dopamine
Beijing, China — 2023
Visual Storytelling ｜ Emotional Positioning ｜ Collection Narrative

This project translates inner emotional states into a wearable collection through material contrast, silhouette control, and sensory-driven design.
The collection constructs a clear emotional narrative across garments, using tension, softness, and layered structures to express vulnerability, self-regulation, and release.

Material and construction choices function as communicative tools, allowing physical form to convey shifts in mood and perception.

The collection was presented at the Reconstruction Shanghai fashion show (2025), positioning the work within a public-facing context focused on emotional storytelling and visual coherence.

Brand Collaboration：
GYVE

Moveable Bones
Beijing, China — 2023
Structural Exploration ｜ Body Movement ｜ Silhouette Transformation

Inspired by traditional body treatment techniques, this project examines how directional force and bodily movement can inform garment structure and silhouette.

Rotation, pressure, and flow are translated into pattern construction and deconstruction, allowing the garment to respond dynamically to the body.

Through experimental cutting and structural shifts, the project explores clothing as an adaptive system shaped by movement rather than a static form.

The collection was selected as a finalist for the Arts of Fashion Foundation (AOF) Awards, 2023.

The Shape of Water
Beijing, China — 2022
Visual Abstraction ｜ Emotional Mapping ｜ Knitted Structure

This project translates fleeting emotions and human encounters into knitted structures through the metaphor of water.
Personal observation is abstracted into flowing textures and layered surfaces, forming a visual system that captures emotional fluctuation and transience.

By balancing softness and structure, the work explores how material and form can communicate internal states within a spatial and tactile context.

Trace
London, UK — 2025
Spatial Storytelling ｜ Inclusive Design ｜ Material-led Communication

Trace is a spatial installation combining knitted textiles with transparent structures, developed from fashion construction logic and the Möbius loop.
The project translates ideas of continuity, care, and presence into a tactile and spatial experience through material, scale, and form.

Textile is repositioned as a communicative medium rather than a surface, connecting individual bodily traces to a shared spatial environment.

Designed for public-facing contexts, the work explores how soft structures and material narratives can support inclusive interaction and audience engagement.

Timeless Transit
London, UK — 2025
Sustainable Design ｜ Cultural Narrative ｜ CMF Strategy

Timeless Transit is a cultural mobility project developed in response to the restoration of Hammersmith Bridge.
By repurposing discarded bridge materials, the e-scooter design connects local heritage with everyday urban movement, positioning mobility as both a functional service and a cultural narrative.

Developed through cross-disciplinary collaboration across fashion, product, and engineering contexts, the project explores how material choice, visual language, and form can communicate sustainability and place-based identity.
Contribution: Participated in early-stage research and interviews; responsible for CMF (Colour, Material, Finish) design and final visual material expression.

3D Carving (ZBrush)
London — 2024
Character Concept Assets ｜ Digital Sculpting ｜ World-building

This body of work presents a series of character concept assets developed through digital sculpting.
Each asset was independently initiated and created as part of early-stage visual exploration, focusing on form, proportion, and surface language rather than a finished project outcome.

The assets function as modular components for world-building and narrative imagination, similar to character assets used in game or virtual-environment contexts.
They support concept testing and visual development across fashion, spatial, and digital scenarios.

Motion & Facial Capture — 2D Interactive Visuals
Motion Capture ｜ Facial Tracking ｜ Real-time 2D Interaction

This project explores real-time two-dimensional visual interaction driven by motion capture and facial capture data.
Human body movement and facial expressions are mapped to graphic parameters, generating responsive visual compositions that change with gesture, posture, and expression.

Developed as a system experiment, the work focuses on testing input–output relationships and interactive visual behaviour rather than audio-driven or narrative-based outcomes.

3D Particles — Audio-visual Interaction
Particle System ｜ Audio-driven Behaviour ｜ Spatial Visual Logic

This project investigates audio-driven particle behaviour within a three-dimensional visual space.
Sound input is translated into particle movement, density, and spatial distribution, creating dynamic spatial visuals that evolve with rhythm and intensity.

Developed as a spatial system study, the work focuses on particle behaviour and audio–visual logic rather than a fully interactive or narrative-led outcome.

Index