Aside from the exhibitors’ booths, a number of curated spaces highlight industry trends; Talent 100 is a platform of one hundred emerging artists, designers, and illustrators; along with Talent 100 Moves, which features an AR experience called Black and Blue Cosmos; FASHION X ILLUSTRATION brings illustrators together with fashion designers in association with FashionBlock Taipei; Food Court focuses on IP licensing for food and beverage products; Gashapon is a wall of one hundred capsule vending machines featuring seventy different toy brands; and at Stage, IP On the Move is a licensing forum that unearths inside knowledge from professional graphic design licensees.
(D1) Character
The Character area of the main exhibition hall is dedicated to original character design from Taiwan and overseas, giving buyers and the public an opportunity to meet the artists behind their favorite cartoon characters. Among this year’s exhibitors, LINE Creators Market celebrates its fifth anniversary by showcasing fifty independent artists on its booth, including The Haughty Smelly Cat by Mochi dad, Corgi Dog KaKa by MATILDE, Lousy girlfriend by Tsun Hui Chang 2.0, and Textbook goes koo-koo! by Turtle Liu. Other exhibitors include INDOT IMAGE CO.,LTD and Taipei’s Check Inn hotel, which collaborates with artists to create experiential hotel rooms.
(D2) Illustration & Design
The Illustration & Design area includes pictorial publishing, games, corporate branding, and other popular applications of character design. Among this year’s exhibitors, inBlooom showcases colorful prints licensed with HIM International Music Inc., and Takashi Kimura’s Japanese floral design company Plantica in collaboration with popular Taiwanese coffee chain Cama Café. Other exhibitors include Taiwanese repeat pattern design brand QUEMOLICA and its Peranakan tile-inspired products, Taiwanese social media sensation fumeancats, trivia story series Incrediville, and Taiwan’s bar crawling bear Beer & Friends.
(D3) Talent 100
The Talent 100 pavilion features artists, designers, and illustrators from 12 countries or regions including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Poland, and Luxembourg. In total, there are one hundred emerging talents, seventy of which come from Taiwan, and the other thirty from the international community. In addition to the exhibitors’ booths, Talent 100 Moves offers visitors an AR experience called Black and Blue Cosmos centered on the theme of local culture and an endemic fern species known as Coupled Dipteris.
Meanwhile, outside of the main exhibition hall, FASHION X ILLUSTRATION brings illustrators from Talent 100 together with fashion designers in association with fashionBlock Taipei. For example, SHOUSHOU sees a fashion designer collaborate with an illustrator of children’s pictorials to create a limited edition t-shirt series, and likewise illustrator Leslie Wang of OUNCE studio collaborates with clothing brand YIBO to create a collection of womenswear featuring hand painted ferns.
Located near the (D3) Talent 100 and (D2) Illustration & Design areas, Gashapon is a wall of one hundred capsule vending machines featuring seventy different toy brands. Some of Taiwan’s most collectible characters are available in the machines, including Foodie Dinosaur by the illustrator behind dogdogBengPeng, as well as Zombie Zoo by KATSU. Another attraction in the same area is (D4) Food Court, which focuses on IP licensing for food and beverage products, highlighting opportunities for character designers in FMCG.
About Creative Expo Taiwan
Since 2010, the annual Creative Expo Taiwan has showcased the best of Taiwan’s culture and creativity. This year’s Creative Expo Taiwan marks the unveiling of a new cultural corridor in Taipei. The main events will take place at five locations along the corridor — Huashan 1914 Creative Park, C-Lab, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Taipei Expo Park – Expo Dome, and TRW Railway Museum.
For updates on all the events, please refer to the latest announcements on the official Creative Expo Taiwan website and social media:
Website: creativexpo.tw
Facebook: 臺灣文博會
Instagram: creativexpotaiwan
Youtube: Taiwan Design Center
App: 臺灣文博會 Taiwan Design Center
Line: 官方帳號-臺灣文博會