Di Mao



Creative Practice

How A Garden becomes a dialogue
12/2025 This project investigates how gestures become tools and how tools generate rules. Through planting experiments, I translate bodily movements such as digging, holding and touching into verb-like objects, revealing how care and discipline coexist in the garden and how tools shape both human behaviour and plant growth. It traces a loop between gesture, tool and rule. I propose a new way of reading the garden, understanding it as a language made of choices and decisions rather than something taken for granted as nature.

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How A Garden becomes a dialogue
Part 1-Pubilication
12/2025This project investigates how gestures become tools and how tools generate rules. Through planting experiments, I translate bodily movements such as digging, holding and touching into verb-like objects, revealing how care and discipline coexist in the garden and how tools shape both human behaviour and plant growth. It traces a loop between gesture, tool and rule. I propose a new way of reading the garden, understanding it as a language made of choices and decisions rather than something taken for granted as nature.

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How A Garden becomes a dialogue
Part 3-Garden Grammar
12/2025Garden Grammar is a zine that treats planting practices as a subject of design research.By analysing gestures involved in planting, the project understands bodily actions as “verbs” and translates them into tools and spatial forms.Through the relationships between soil, tools and plant growth, it investigates how human actions leave structures within non-human systems, and how these structures are perceived and responded to.

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Time to clean
5/2025 Cleanliness is both an instinctive behavior rooted in animal survival and a human practice continually shaped by cultural norms and social evolution. As an act, a system, and a symbolic structure, it is embedded in nearly every aspect of daily life. From the micro-movements of the hand to the collective rituals of a community, from invisible labor to public performance, cleaning reflects the subtle yet powerful dynamics between body, space, and society.

Rather than glorify cleaning, our aim is to return it to its everyday context—to see it anew, to question its assumptions, and to sense its presence. To support this reflection, we have created five tools that explore the relationship between humans and cleanliness through gesture, movement, the body, and social interaction. These tools are not definitive answers, but invitations to pause, notice, and engage with a practice that is often dismissed, yet deeply revealing.

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Time to clean (book)
5/2025 This book explores the often overlooked labor of cleaning—its invisibility, repetition, and quiet power. Through images, interviews, and reflections, it reveals how cleaning shapes our daily lives, spaces, and social roles.

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Wallet
5/2025This is a one-week manual exercise that explores the everyday object of the wallet. By collecting real wallets used by different people, I examined them from four perspectives: the history of the wallet, its physical appearance, the items it contains, and the very concept of what makes a wallet a "wallet." Through these dimensions, I aim to understand both the function and symbolic meaning of the wallet, and to explore its role in contemporary life.

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The year with many summers
3/2025 Summer is typically measured using standard climate indicators, such as temperature thresholds, atmospheric conditions, and seasonal cycles. For example, according to the Met Office, summer in the UK is defined as the months of June, July, and August, with an average temperature of 15°C or higher.
In our project, we use temperature as the parameter to identify when summer has arrived, even if this falls outside the conventional date range. Using coded algorithms and environmental sensors, we capture surrounding temperature conditions and translate them into contextually relevant audio cues.
In London, the sound of an ice cream van is a familiar signal of summer. When the temperature reaches a certain threshold, our system triggers this sound. If the temperature exceeds 28°C on March 9th and March 19th, can that day be considered spring, or summer? Through this approach, we question the notion of fixed seasonal boundaries, presenting a dynamic, fluid concept of summer shaped by human experience and activity.

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The year with many summers(book)
3/2025 Summer is typically measured using standard climate indicators, such as temperature thresholds, atmospheric conditions, and seasonal cycles. For example, according to the Met Office, summer in the UK is defined as the months of June, July, and August, with an average temperature of 15°C or higher.
In our project, we use temperature as the parameter to identify when summer has arrived, even if this falls outside the conventional date range. Using coded algorithms and environmental sensors, we capture surrounding temperature conditions and translate them into contextually relevant audio cues.
In London, the sound of an ice cream van is a familiar signal of summer. When the temperature reaches a certain threshold, our system triggers this sound. If the temperature exceeds 28°C on March 9th and March 19th, can that day be considered spring, or summer? Through this approach, we question the notion of fixed seasonal boundaries, presenting a dynamic, fluid concept of summer shaped by human experience and activity.

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What is good design
1/2024The “Ten Commandments of New Design” is a design movement. Using Shanghai’s Anfu Road as a reference, I categorize items in this area based on proposed design standards to differ- entiate between good and bad designs. What ex- actly defines these design criteria, and can they truly identify what makes a design good?

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The Capture
12/2023 From the linguistic composition of bad comments (offensive, negative speech), it is found that the subject is mostly the collective "we" rather than the individual "i".
Especially in China's online public opinion environment, it is common to see netizens using patriotism and ultra-nationalism to attack different targets indiscriminately, and "we" is also a basic component of their speech.
From this observation of language habits, I began to think about the underlying factors.

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Memories in the evening
4/2023This is a publishing project about memory, personal objects, and the life of a woman in 1980s China. Starting from five items my grandmother kept—a suitcase, a radio, knitted socks, photographs, and handwritten manuscripts—I tell her story through an intimate, micro perspective. These seemingly ordinary objects have become vessels of emotion and memory, shaped by time.

The project began from a childhood misunderstanding of my grandmother’s habit of “keeping too many things.” It wasn’t until I rediscovered these items in the attic and talked with her in depth that I realized they were more than personal belongings—they were quiet witnesses to a shared era.

Divided into five chapters, the book uses images, text, interviews, and visual design to reconstruct the memories behind each object. This is both a gift to my grandmother and a journey to reconnect with family, history, and the emotional depth of everyday life.

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The POST-WORD
2/2023The POST-WORD is a future information world constructed through the forms of natural organisms.

POST-WORD is a conceptual proposition. It draws on the constituent relationships in natural ecology and redefines issues concerning the transmission of information. It argues that the form of future information dissemination should be redefined, resembling the evolution of language, while also contemplating the differences between the real world and the world of information. This enables people to search for so- called truths and trends in repeated self-fragmentation and reorganization.

At the same time, POST-WORD deviates to some extent from the trend of information development where complexity turns into simplicity. It advocates that future information will combine in the form of living things in natural ecology, representing a way to explore the genuine perception of the information world.

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The Drinkery (re-design brand)
10/2022This project is inspired by a community bar I often visit called The Drinkery. The bar has a relaxed atmosphere where you can meet a wide variety of people. Their slogan is: "No strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet."

The prototype for the IP character I designed is a long-haired dachshund named KIKI. According to its owner, KIKI takes its owner to the bar for a cocktail every day during their walk. KIKI has become the guide for these drinking outings and clearly enjoys its time at the bar. It gets to meet different dogs and people, and everyone adores it.

In my design, "KIKI" has two forms: one representing its morning work mode and the other its drinking mode. These forms correspond to the duality of our lives as working individuals—diligently following a routine in the morning and then unwinding after work.

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The world we live in
11/2022ART DIRECTOR:DI MAO
PHOTOGRAPHER:GAHO WANG / DI  MAO
MODEL: DI MAO
PRODUCER: ZIXUAN JI/ DI MAO

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LUU
10/2022LUU is a brand that aspires to interpret the culture of incense in a youthful way.

Inspired by the Guangdong tradition of blessing peace with pomelo leaves and the unique experience of traditional incense ceremony, we have fused the two, with visual elements as well as flavours revolving around the extracts of the pomelo tree. The result is a new style of incense experience with a unique twist.

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SHUSHU
9/2022SHUSHU is a room fragrance brand inspired by the scent of different forms of trees. Inspiring people to think about the relationship between people and trees, people and nature, and to focus more on protecting the ecology of the earth.

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RRoom
6/2022RRooM is a smart home brand.
We develop devices that make everyday gestures easier.Our scenario is the whole world.We wanted to combine the seemingly distant worlds of technology and nature to give a unique feel.

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Sverige re-design
4/2021Sweden is a country known for its balance of warmth and boundaries, with Sami culture being a vital part of its traditions.

The logo design incorporates colors from the Sami flag. The pattern combines a smiley face with Sweden’s national flower, the lily of the valley, while the semicircular curve conveys an open and friendly attitude. The icon designs follow a minimalist style, using points, lines, and planes from the logo to reflect the concept of "moderation" and present the content in a clear and straightforward way.

The entire set of icons embodies both Swedish and Sami spirit, showcasing the richness of Swedish culture. Eight icons highlight Swedish specialties, and another eight represent iconic buildings. The theme, Cultural Overview, provides a comprehensive representation of Sweden’s cultural essence.

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Frames
12/2020Based on the shape of window frames, I associated it with the concept of 'frames.' The world is composed of countless frames, where there's inside, there's outside. The frames within our- selves often constrain us, making it difficult to break out of our comfort zones. As individuals, we are also a frame. Interpersonal relationships between people are much like the merging of frames, but as individuals, do we really need to merge with other frames? How can we manage the relationship between individuality and collectivity?"

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Commissioned Work




Goldsmiths MA Design Expanded Practice Degree Show
Visual Lead / Art Direction / Graphic Design
I served as the Visual Lead for the Goldsmiths MA Design (Expanded Practice) Degree Show, responsible for the exhibition’s overall visual direction.
My role encompassed art direction, catalogue design, team coordination, and cross-group communication, ensuring visual consistency across different exhibition elements while supporting collaboration between teams.

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WHOO
Art Direction / Graphic Design
Hunan and Hubei, two provinces that sit next to each other, are Hui and Wan’s hometowns. The character “湖” (hú), meaning lake, appears in both names. ‘Hunan-Hubei’ — the south side and the north side of the lake. It evokes the phrase “五湖四海” (“the five lakes and the four seas”), a symbol of warmth and inclusivity that welcomes people from all corners of the world.

It is a name that carries a sense of embrace - this would be a restaurant rooted in the flavours of Hunan and Hubei, but also a home for all of us who have come from different places, brought together around the table in the space.


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Nike
Art Direction / Graphic Design/Set  Designer
I was responsible for the art direction, graphic design, and selected set design across multiple seasons of Nike video projects.
Across different filming contexts, I maintained visual consistency within Nike’s brand language through the integrated control of space, color, and materials, while creating environments that align with physical movement and the rhythm of the image.

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Airbnb
Art Direction / Graphic Design
For an Airbnb video series consisting of three films, I was responsible for the visual design and art direction of one film.
Working within a shared visual framework led by the overall art director, my role focused on developing and executing the visual language for my assigned film while ensuring alignment and consistency with the broader series.


Research & Practice


Reading Room#2
umum objects x Di Mao
Reading Room #2 explores typology books as a way to turn quiet obsessions into shared investigations, with guest visual designer Di Mao.


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