Cheng Peng combines geometry with heart and character

Based in Shenzhen, the creative works for Heizi, a brand design studio part of tech giant Tencent. As part of the role, she recently created a series of posters for an initiative to help autistic children feel more welcome in Shenzhen society. Each one works brilliantly, showing off Cheng's knack for combining abstract geometry and colour.

"Because I'm very interested in shapes and colours," Cheng tells Creative Boom, "I'm always exploring the possibilities of combining the two in my works."

"My posters were on the theme of 'Caring for Beautiful Minds.' Autistic children are just as curious about the world as any other child; they too love animals and plants, sunshine and rain. I hope these posters will call on society to understand their beautiful minds without using labels."

"I used simple geometric shapes to represent sunlight, flowers, rainwater, animals, fruits and children. I hope that these simple shapes can represent the pure essence of children and that society can also see the same essence of autistic children and their beautiful minds."

Geometric gloriousness can also be seen in Cheng's design work. In her previous position at Momo, another tech company, Cheng created cute pig-themed gift boxes that were given out to employees by the brand.

"It was a New Year gift for them, with a traditional red envelope and calendar inside. For the design style, I also used a simplified approach for the piggy shapes, such as zooming in on some of the pig features, or combining the piggy shapes with other shapes."

"I used a grid system to standardize the shapes to make sure they looked visually balanced. I also used some bright colours to make the gift box look festive and lively."

The giving of envelopes with money during New Year is a Chinese tradition, much like the eating of bamboo-enveloped rice cakes during the summer Dragon Boat Festival. Momo employees were lucky once more, getting to be given such dishes in special dragon-decorated packaging made by Cheng.

"The design was inspired by traditional figures like dragon boats, the zongzi food itself, classic architecture, plants, and so on."

"I simplified these figures into geometric style but still kept the traditional parts so that they seemed modern as well."

"Chinese festivals are the real charm of our culture. As a designer and illustrator, I hope to be involved in more cultural projects, and I hope people will have fresh feelings about Chinese traditions through my works."