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Ling Lei 另类 is a hypothetical exhibition designed by Wendy Wan for a typography class at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.

The exhibition features 6 Chinese counter-culture photographers who are known for their edginess and non-threatening exposure of the communist government. Due to the nature of the regime's strict censorship and confinement on any form of expression, these artists found photography as their medium to portray as they wish without the regard of socialism and suppression.



The book and it's overall theme is pink. When thinking of communism and censorship, there is an immediate assumption of the color red. In a country like China, where the dictatorship of its state can restrain for whatever purpose they deem to be valid. Like the featured photographers and their work, there is a fine line between what censorship should and should not be; specifically art, it is the definitive grey area that is challenging to translate. So instead of using red, I wanted to use pink, a shade of red, to represent the ambiguity and its natural symbol of the said grey area.

From the theme to its composition, the book symbolically embodies the topic as a whole. The running headers of the book are not located at the top or bottom but are in the middle of the book. Symbolically expressing the “invisible red line” which is the first main article of the book; an article emphasizing the contradictory art censorship in China and the “invisible red line” that these artists must never cross. Artists faced censorship for many years in China but when is it too far or too much?







©2025 Wendy On-Kei Wan