Validation is an important part of the creative process. In my previous concept creation blog posts, I revealed the logical, intuitive and serendipitous events that necessarily conspired as we created our Year of the Snake movie.

One discovery that was particularly gratifying was an ancient poem we chose to grace the imagery and music elements of our film. We would not have found these beautiful words if not for the research our studio colleague Ningning Lu did on our behalf.

Using simple keywords, such as “lanterns” and “moon,” in Chinese and English, Ning discovered a poem titled Yuan Xiao, written by Tang Yin during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The poet was also considered a notable painter, and is included in the Chinese art history book, Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty.

“I used both English and Chinese keywords because ‘Lantern Festival’ in Chinese literally means ‘the 15^th day of the New Year,’ which is the day of the Lantern Festival. This helped me find poetry linked to the holiday,” Ning says. “In English, Yuan Xiao means rice glue ball. Chinese people eat yuan xiao during Lantern Festival activities.”

The poem spoke to the heart of our quixotic decision to connect the full moon and Lantern Festival with a water snake rising from the depths.

We were elated to realize that our attempt to connect these extremities for a contemporary audience was actually articulated centuries ago. We took a leap when we began our project and somehow landed on the terra firma of tradition. This is why we must always follow our instincts.

If finding such beautiful words felt lucky, it still left us with a difficult decision: how to best use the poem — in English and Chinese.

We asked Barry Zhigang Bai 白志刚, an English professor at Shenyang Normal University 沈阳师范大学外国语学院, China to translate the poem. As much as we appreciate the Google Translate function, we just didn’t think it would provide the nuance we needed.

Barry gave us three versions, all of which were well done. I chose the one that, to me, was the most poetic use of the English language.

But where to position the text?

It amazes me how answers to new questions often can be found in the creative work we have already done. As the film came into being we fell in love with a sequence where the moon rises through trees. The branches in silhouette looked as though characters from the Chinese alphabet had been written in the sky. There could be no better place to share the poem.

Without the moon above, the lanterns convey no joy

Without lanterns below, the moon shows no sign of spring

It is always the attention to detail that elevates our work from good to high design. An aesthetic soul perceives and absorbs these connections — the writing which mimic the tree branches — and that connection is a big moment for designers. For obvious reasons, mundane and ordinary are easy to come by. Simplicity is sublime and powerful and may take dozens of iterations to achieve.

Coming Soon! Concept Creation 5: Final thoughts: It’s a wrap!