Yichan Wang, Visual Designer, is most inspired by the creative and talented people in her circles. “Making art is how I form deep connections with many of my friends,” she says. “Their stories, processes, and perspectives continually fuel my creativity. For instance, in 2020, my friend Daniel Young wrote a song called ‘Results'. When we discussed the piece, we delved into the connection between the microscopic and macroscopic, from cells to planets, and how these extremes shape a modern vision of the world.”

This conversation led to a collaboration and animated music video a year later. Wang finds herself intensely drawn to the narratives the emerge when people interact with places, and how those physical spots can be so deeply significant. It’s a massive source of inspiration for her work. “A recent project was designing memory palaces in a VR environment, leveraging 3D space to arrange and present personal memory as well as knowledge architecture,” she says. She’s also working on a graphic novel, which she sees feeding into her design work.

As a child, Wang was an avid. “The written words were my sensory organs through which I experienced the world and made sense of my existence,” Wang says. “I spent a lot of time reading. Since then, I wanted to do nothing more than create work for others and tell stories that cast spells.” While Wang initially thought she was going to study psychology or sociology in school, she became hooked on the visual arts by chance. “In 2014 I took my first drawing class out of simple curiosity,” Wang says. “I fell in love with it. Visual art was an intuitive way for me to engage with people and reach the truth of experiences.”