A hand-painted 2D animation, “The Followers,” created by students of the Department of Commercial Design at Chung Yuan Christian University has beaten 7,451 works from 53 countries and won the German Red Dot Award: Communication Design 2015. The award is known as the Oscars of Design.

The animation depicts the general phenomenon of following blindly in Chinese communities by presenting what the main character sees and does while going to the train station. “The Followers” won the award due to its detailed and profound settings. The prize will be awarded in Berlin, Germany on November 6.

Commercial Times reports, “The Followers” was instructed by Huang Yi-ting and designed by junior students Lai Yi-ru, Lin Shi-xuan and Zhang Zhe-gang. In the animation, the characters change their appearances based on the things they encounter in the 1980s Taiwan. At the end of the clip, the protagonist looks exactly the same as the other people, disclosing the general phenomenon of following blindly in Chinese community within just 68 seconds.

CNA reports, the team named the protagonist, Jia-hao, according to the survey regarding the most popular male names by the Ministry of the Interior as a symbol of following trends in the society.

Huang says, the animation mainly discusses the phenomenon of following trends in our society. People interact with each other frequently and receive diverse information, which makes a person give up thinking, get lazy and follow others blindly. “The Follower” asks, “If you have a chance to become whoever you want, would you like to be yourself?”

China Times reports, the three-minute Chinese version of “The Followers” won nomination for the best design award and special award in the Young Pin Design Award this year.

The Followers：

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

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