On Making: Drawing Mulan as a Single Line

Editor's note: this piece records the making of Mulan Maison's visual work. At the creator's request he is called by his role, "visual designer," fourteen years in the field.

First Version: 12 Sketches

Q: When you first got the brief of "Mulan," what was your first reaction?

A: To run from it. The word Mulan has been drawn far too many times: riding, armored, red tassels, war banners. Every one of them good to look at, every one of them looking like someone else's work.

Q: So how did you begin?

A: I first drew every element I could think of, twelve of them. Horse, armor, sword, banner, moon, mountains, coiled hair, a figure seen from behind... When they were done I spread them all out on the table and looked for a long time.

The conclusion: not one of them could be used. They all described what Mulan did; not one said who Mulan is.

The Turn: Remove Everything Specific

Q: So what then?

A: I changed the question. If Mulan could only be shown in a single stroke, what should that stroke be?

I sat for a long while, and what came to me was not a shape but a movement. In the act of spurring a horse, the most powerful thing is not the horse, nor the rider, but that diagonal line rising from lower to upper, almost unable to hold itself back. It is the posture of setting out itself.

Q: So what stayed, in the end, was one line.

A: One line with acceleration. It runs from lower left to upper right, its weight varying, its end lifting slightly. No horse, no armor, no banner. Yet anyone who sees it feels, without thinking, that she is setting out.

Not describing what Mulan did,
only saying who Mulan is.

Execution: How Many Tests One Line Must Pass

• AngleThe slope is set at 32 degrees. Flatter looks weak, steeper looks over-tense. The number came out of more than forty drafts; there is no formula.
• Weight0.6 at the start, 1.2 at the end, in relative stroke units. It cannot be even in the middle; even, it becomes a geometric figure and stops looking like a brush.
• Horizontal compressionOn phones the line gets flattened, so we made a steeper derived angle, used only on narrow screens.
• GroundThe line only holds on a warm black ground. On white it looks frivolous, because white gives it no weight.
• Where the gold goesThe line itself is not gilded. Gold only traces its starting point, a very small closing. Let the gold grow and the whole figure collapses.

On Resemblance

Q: Will some people feel this does not look like Mulan?

A: They will. And that is a necessary price. A figure recognized at a glance is usually a figure forgotten at a glance.

What I wanted was a slower effect: abstract at first sight, familiar at the second, and by the tenth time you see it you are already using it to mean Mulan. Only then has it truly become a symbol.

Three Sentences for People Who Build Brands

• OneDraw everything you can think of first, then have the courage to use none of it. A first round of ideas is almost always someone else's.
• TwoWhen you find that single stroke, it is usually so simple you suspect yourself of laziness. Do not doubt it. It is right.
• ThreeA simple figure is the most expensive. It cannot hide behind detail; every judgment is out in the open.

Afterword

In the end not one of those twelve sketches was used. But none of them was thrown away. They now hang in the corridor on the second floor of Mulan Maison, laid out in order; the thirteenth is the line.

At the end of the corridor is a sentence: only after drawing every wrong road do you know which one is right.

• On Making
• Visual Design
• Brand Symbol
• A Single Line
• Mulan Maison
• Sketches