On Wednesday, Andy and I went to the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the exhibit China Design Now. (The link goes to a different museum, but it’s the same show.) It tells the story of design in China, focusing the story through three cities: Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing.

I really liked the first part best (Shenzhen: the beginning of graphic design in China in the 1980s and 1990s) and Andy liked the last part best (Beijing: architecture — each exhibit featured a proposed model of the building/area, and then photographs of the reality). There was some fashion and some product design in the middle that neither of us were wild about. Overall, though, it was quite nice.

We also came across a solo exhibit of Ryan McGinness‘s work. This particular show featured blacklight art, meaning the paintings were done with metallic and fluorescent paints and then viewed in the dark via blacklights.

As it turns out, Mr. McGinness went to our alma mater, Carnegie Mellon. It was cool to see the work of a fellow alum, especially since he’s so young and already apparently experiencing a good amount of success.