MULAN JOURNAL / 06 DIALOGUE
On Craft: Drawing Mulan as a Single Line
He drew twelve sketches for Mulan Maison and, in the end, kept only one line.
Editor's note: This piece records the making of the Mulan Maison visual identity. At the designer's request, he is identified only by his role — "visual design", fourteen years in the profession.
The First Version: Twelve Sketches
Q: When the brief "Mulan" first landed on your desk, what was your first reaction?
A: To hide. The word "Mulan" has been drawn too many times already — riding, armor, red tassel, battle flag. Every version looked good, and every version looked like someone else had made it.
Q: So how did you begin?
A: I drew every element I could think of, twelve sheets in all. Horse, armor, sword, flag, moon, mountains, chignon, a figure seen from behind… Then I spread them all on the table and looked for a long time.
The conclusion: not one could be used. They all describe what Mulan did; not one says who Mulan is.
The Turn: Removing Everything Concrete
Q: So what did you do?
A: I changed the question. If Mulan could be expressed in a single stroke, what should that stroke be?
I sat with it a long time, and what came to me was not a shape but a motion. In the act of spurring a horse forward, the most powerful element is neither the horse nor the rider — it is that diagonal running from bottom to top, nearly too fast to hold. It is the posture of "setting out" itself.
Q: So what remained in the end was one line.
A: A line with acceleration. It runs from lower left to upper right, varying in weight, lifting slightly at the tip. No horse, no armor, no flag. Yet people who see it instinctively feel: she is setting out.
It does not describe what Mulan did.
It only says who Mulan is.
Execution: How Many Gates One Line Must Pass
- AngleThe slope was set at 32 degrees. Flatter reads as weak; steeper reads as overwrought. The number came out of more than forty drafts — there is no formula.
- WeightThe stroke starts at 0.6 and ends at 1.2 (relative stroke units). The middle must not be even; even weight turns it into a geometric figure, no longer like a pen.
- Horizontal scalingOn phone screens the line gets flattened, so a steeper derivative angle was made for narrow screens only.
- GroundThe line only holds on a warm-black ground. On white it reads as frivolous, because white gives it no weight.
- Where the gold goesThe line itself takes no gold. Gold is drawn only at its starting point, a tiny closing. Any larger and the whole figure collapses.
On Likeness
Q: Will some people feel this does not look like Mulan?
A: They will. And that is a necessary price. A figure recognizable at a glance is usually a figure forgettable at a glance.
What I wanted was a slower effect: abstract at first sight, familiar at the second, and by the tenth you are already using it to mean Mulan. Only then does it truly become a symbol.
Three Sentences for Brand Builders
- OneDraw everything you can think of first, then be brave enough to use none of it. The first batch of ideas almost always belongs to someone else.
- TwoWhen you find that single stroke, it will usually be so simple you suspect yourself of laziness. Don't. It is right.
- ThreeThe simple figure is the most expensive. It cannot hide its flaws in detail; every judgment lies in the open.
Afterword
None of the twelve sketches was adopted in the end. But none was thrown away — they now hang in the corridor of Mulan Maison's second floor, arranged in order, with the line as the thirteenth.
At the end of the corridor there is a sentence: you must draw every wrong road before you know which one is right.
TO TASTE · A cup from the same source
Mulan Collections · Bespoke Gifting
From emblem to object, the same subtraction. Corporate commissions, co-branding and gifts can all begin from this line.
Visit the boutique ↗The Mulan Journal, written slowly.
Volume One has twelve pieces, one every two weeks. Leave your email and the next one comes straight to you.