The outstanding art of the ordinary

"The whole picture is simple and clean, but packs an alerting punch," says Qin, adding that she admires Wei's novel ideas and masterful arrangement of details.

The work was actually a prize winner a decade ago, when Wei was studying package art design at the Hangzhou Dianzi University.

"I was attracted to poster design after taking related courses, especially with elements that took my fancy," Wei says.

In 2012, he used old newspapers and plastic bags which he kneaded into the shape of fish, turtles, crabs and trees for half a month and featured them in a series of posters on the theme of environmental protection.

Wei then submitted them to the Creative Responsibility Tomorrow competition hosted by STDecaux, a Shanghai-based subway advertising company.

He got a silver medal and prize money of 5,000 yuan ($702).

The competition was open to students and professional designers.

"I was a student then, and the silver medal was not easy to obtain, especially facing other contestants who were basically all professional designers," Wei says.

The contest gave Wei faith to settle on a career in poster design, which he says allows him to easily satisfy his strong desire for artistic creation and materialize abstract concepts in a more vivid and powerful way than words.

"Initially, I just wanted to express my sentiments through the design of some creative posters," Wei says.

"It's basically anything that comes off the top of my head, such as my own experiences," he adds.

Sometimes, it takes him an hour or two to conceive a poster idea, while sometimes it just takes five minutes for him to have an epiphany.

He first arranges the props in the way he wants, and then photographs them before turning them into a poster.