Interview with Yiying Lu Fail Whale Creator

The Shorty Awards were held on February 11^th this year to celebrate the best producers of short expression on Twitter. Yiying Lu a designer based in Australia was awarded a Shorty in recognition of her very special contribution to the Tweeting world.

The image, Lifting Up A Dreamer, was original created by Lu as an electronic birthday card for a friend. It depicts a dreamy whale being held aloft by a flock of birds. In 2007 Lu uploaded the image to iStockphoto where it was discovered a year later by Twitter founder, Biz Stone.

The rest, as they say, history.

At the time, Lu wasn’t even on Twitter but she soon became aware of the hype surrounding the social networking phenomenon. Lifting Up A Dreamer is the image Twitter users see when the system is down, and thus has been nicknamed The Fail Whale. The Fail Whale has now reached cult icon status with fan sites and merchandise to boot.

The mascot has earned her and her design work a lot of attention. Though Twitter acquired the image without any revenue reaching Lu directly, through sales of merchandise the Fail Whale is starting to earn its keep.

Stone told The New York Times that his company would prefer the whale to be a memory as it would mean the system was functioning better, but in the mean this serene Whale, his flock of hard-flapping friends and Lu seem to be enjoying the ride.

Design Federation caught up with Lu – lover of wombats and platypuses and inventor of the Fail Whale for a quick chat;

Can you give us a rundown on your career pre-Fail Whale?
After I graduated from selective high school in Shanghai, I moved to Sydney in 2002 to study Design at the University of New South Wales and awarded the Most Outstanding Performance in Design.

In 2004, I commenced my Bachelor of Design Visual Communication degree at the University of Technology, Sydney and went on an exchange study in London at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design. While there, I studied advertising, illustration and book design and returned to Graduate in 2007 with First-Class Honors.
I started my design practice while still a student. I was tutoring computer workshops within the school of Design at UTS. I’ve also been involved with various design projects with UTS: Insearch on Academic English Course book design.

I have always been interested in communication and culture exchange in design. I worked as a bilingual interpreter and translator for Australian Education International and Tongji University International Students Exhibition.

I am also interested in Advertising and Networking so I’ve worked at JWT as a Junior creative, Animal Logic as a graphic designer and McCann-Erickson as a bilingual copy-writing consultant in English & Chinese for Maybelline New York.

How would you describe your design style?
Simplicity + Functional + Fun

What influence did your time at Saint Martins’ College have on your work?
I think my time at Central Saint Martin’s not only nurtured my ability on visual thinking, but also taught me to synthesize the graphic traditions of Asian, Australian as well as European and develop my very personal visual style.

Did you join Twitter before or after the Fail Whale was adopted?
Funnily enough, it was my whale who introduced me to Twitter after it had been made the Fail Whale.

How many followers do you have on Twitter now?
At the moment I’ve got 1400+ followers on Twitter and I appreciated all the support.

What do you think about this new social networking tool?
It has been an amazing experience so far for me on Twitter. Being nominated and voted for the Shorty Awards in Design which provided the chance to fly to New York for the ceremony. While there I met the people who I have been in contact with and who contributed to the Fail Whale Story in “reality”.

I went to the Great Fail Whale Party II in San Francisco and all the people I met in at the party were there because of Twitter and we had a great time.

Through Twitter, I have connected with a lot of people from different places, speaking different languages, sharing different cultures which has broadened my social networking contacts and supported my design practices on many different levels.

When did you notice the Fail Whale was becoming a cult icon?
From the birth of www.failwhale.com by @seanosteen, 3D Fail Whale Scupture by @Hil121, Lego Fail Whale by @tveskov to Fail Whale Tattoo on @critter.

I received many tweets from Tweeple (Twitter People) on Fail Whale and realised it really had become a cult icon so I’ve created this website for this:www.whatisfailwhale.info

What’s the best thing that has come out of the sudden interest in your design?
I think the support and love from people for my design is the best gift a designer/artist can ever expect. I’ve always tried to “touch some one’s heart with design” like Stefan Sagmeister suggested. When I heard from a school security officer (who I had never spoken to in the past) and he said, “Oh I love your work, that’s like David Copperfield – using birds to life up a whale…” I really treasure moments like that.

What’s the worst thing that has come out of the attention?
My email box gets overloaded and I probably need to get more storage.

Have you had contact with the creators of Twitter?
Yes. I visited Twitter HQ after FailParty II and said hi in person to @ev & @biz.

You say on your website that you have a talent for impersonations, has this helped your career?
This is an inherited gene from my father :)  Dad would mimic all kinds of accents from different regions when I was little. I’m good with Little Britain impersonations. It hasn’t yet brought me any work directly gets me smiles most of the time.

What’s next for Yiying Lu?
Yiying Lu is still young and has a lot of potential.  There will be continuous networking and creating to gain support and inspiration.

Related Links

Check Yiying Lu’s website out here http://www.yiyinglu.com/

All images accompanying Design Federation interviews are © Copyright of the interview subject and may not be reproduced without the permission of the owner.

Tags: fail whale, Lifting Up A Dreamer, The Shorty Awards, twitter, Yiying Lu