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Tiechuanghua

(2026)

The Tiechuanghua project sets out to record a history that is slowly disappearing. By looking behind Taiwan's iron window gratings for the stories hidden there, it searches for the invisible designers who gave Taiwanese houses their character.

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Type

Workshop Design
Illustration
Visual Identity
Print Design

Role

Illustrator
Workshop Designer and Facilitator

(in Collaboration with Shannon Liu, Graphic designer

)

Overview

The patterns found on Taiwan's iron window gratings trace back to Jianzhi, a domestic art of paper-cutting practiced by women at home. They were not trained designers. They made by hand, for the people around them, and their contribution was never credited.
The workshop, held in London and open to everyone, uses storytelling to surface these hidden histories, inviting participants to learn the craft by making the gratings themselves. The history was specific and largely unknown.

The visual identity had to hold both sides: grounded enough to honour the women behind the work, open enough to welcome anyone into it. Every element is made to carry the texture of the hand, rooted in the act of making, familiar in feeling but never formulaic.

The visual identity had to carry the same spirit. Too polished and it would lose the intimacy of something made at home. Too rough and it would bury the very women we were trying to make visible. Everything in the identity needed to feel shaped by hand, rooted in process, and close to the everyday making that these women practiced.

The colour palette is drawn from 1970s Taiwanese visual culture, sourced from old photographs and printed material of that period. The primary tones shift from blue to an oxidised brown, reflecting the way iron naturally rusts and ages over time. The broader palette picks up the faded, warm tones specific to that era.

The main poster draws from 1970s Taiwanese living room, where a modest space would be packed with tools and goods from household piecework. In that era, iron window gratings served primarily for ventilation. Over time, regional differences, family traditions, and the cultural divide between north and south gave rise to distinct patterns, which is why Tiechuanghua is also known as iron flower. The entire visual is built around the home and the iron window as carriers of history. Every element traces back to the same source material. A fitting home for a history that was always there, just rarely looked for.

Material:
1* Workshop manual
1* A3 Instruction poster
2* A5 Fliers
Iron wire tiechuanghua

The workshop manual sits between a practical guide and a cultural artefact. Its format is zine-like and collaged, deliberately dense, drawing from the visual texture of Taiwanese streets. Participants take home something that carries the history as much as it teaches the craft.

Tiechuanghua Workshop
(Edition 01)

April 2, 2026 (Thursday)
6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Zao An, Unit 23, The Ivories 6 Northampton St, N1 2HY, London

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Tiechuanghua Workshop
(Edition 02)

Aug 17, 2026 (Monday)
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Rhizomatic!, Hackney Wick, E3 2NR, London