THE seventh China International Animation & Cartoon Festival is coming to town through next Tuesday. The six-day carnival will continue popular traditions and inject some innovative ideas and activities, such as pin trading and wall painting. So who's behind this animation extravaganza? Shanghai Daily talks to three figures behind the scenes and listens to their stories about the cartoon and animation festival.

'Cool your mind'

The animation and cartoon event will feature many high-profile professional exhibitions and forums, but some are designed to be fun for everyone. They include the Cool Mind Fair, selling creative knickknacks, such as dolls, jewelry and hand-painted clothes.

The Cool Mind Fair has been running for three years and there's one held in the city every month. But the one during the China International Animation & Cartoon Festival is the biggest.

Last year, it attracted 210,000 visitors and sold around 1 million yuan (US$153,000) worth of creative products.

The organizers are Zhou Ji, who initiated the fair, and Chen Bin, who is the executive.

They say its appeal is that its products must be genuinely original and creative - not every vendor can sell there.

"Stuff available everywhere, such as rubber screaming chickens, though creative, won't have a chance with us," says Chen. "And you won't find low-end, homemade items such as silk-stocking flowers.

"Only products that are really unique and that can make an impact are allowed."

For this reason, vendors are mainly students or fresh art graduates who own an original brand, and business people with exclusive purchasing channels."

Chen was one of them. He studied at the China Academy of Art and used to sell T-shirts he designed and painted for the Folk Carnival of Cartoons and Animation, the predecessor of Cool Mind Fair. Zhou spotted him and tapped him to run the fair as his partner.

"Chen's work wasn't selling well at that time and he was always in a bad mood, but I noticed his designs were very inspiring," says Zhou.

Chen's break came in 2008 when his work was shown in a charity bazaar to help victims of the Sichuan earthquake. His T-shirts were hot items and then he and Zhou partnered up.

The duo not only inspires vendors to be creative, but also brainstorms ideas.

This year, the zones in the fair are designed as virtual neighborhood blocks featuring mailboxes, house numbers, traffic lights and zebra crossings. Paths in the fair are named after real roads in Hangzhou, such as Hai'er Alley and Pishi Alley.

Every year Cool Mind adopts a theme, such as "Reminiscences," "Celebration," and "The Folks." This year's theme is "Low-carbon living."

For the center of the fair, Chen designed a 2-meter-tall, 6-meter-wide "suitcase" made of recycled steel scrap. It's a piece of installation art and inside the "case" is a DIY center where staff teach visitors to make knickknacks using recycled materials.

"The huge brown 'suitcase' can be opened and closed in five minutes, so I can load it into a van and take it to exhibitions and fairs everywhere," says Chen.

It must be hard to come up with fresh ideas for the trendy fair now running for three years.

"Creation can be as large as an industry, but it can also be as small as an idea," says Zhou. "If you have a sensitive heart and rich knowledge, it's natural to come up with creative ideas."



'To make up the city'

Zhu has just completed her work to "make up" Zhongbei Creative Block. The Huiyulin City Image Studio where she is design supervisor has made "Angry Birds" fly from the screens of iPads to nestle at the substations and dust bins in the block for the cartoon and animation festival.

For 11 days from early morning to late evening, five artists from the studio painted 44 trash bins and 29 substations with cartoon pictures, featuring animation icons such as figures in games "Angry Birds" and "Plants vs Zombies."

Zhu says the local studio didn't expect to work at the international festival until two weeks ago.

"We only intended to beautify the block by painting bins to look like ring-pull cans, but the local government loved the idea and asked us to develop and add more cartoon elements for the festival," she says.

They came up with three kinds of designs: one features figures in PC games like "Angry Birds;" another uses icons such as Garfield and Hello Kitty and the studio's original cartoons; and the third features traditional Chinese elements such as blue and white porcelain and Peking Opera masks, which suggest the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) Imperial Street in the Zhongbei Creative Block.

The project lasted 11 days and the artists often had to squat down and work for more than 12 hours a day, cleaning surfaces, painting and varnishing.

"We were a little worried whether the 'zombies' were too extreme for a rubbish bin, but we were reassured when an 80-year-old passerby called it 'great work'," says Zhu.

"Many citizens commend us and help us. Some residents give us water to drink and some say the paintings really improve their mood, which really makes work easier," she says.

The designs will remain for a year; new ones will be designed for the next animation and cartoon festival.



'Happy pin trading'

Souvenirs and badges are popular at all kinds of events, so Li Lian and his Versatile Media Co developed 12 pins exclusively for this year's China International Animation & Cartoon Festival. They are for both sale and exchange.

"Disneyland, the Olympics, and World Expo all have traditions of pin trading, and we think CICAF can follow," says Li.

He says pin trading can help children be more outgoing and communicate with each other. "Chinese children, who are mostly the only child in the family, need to learn more about it," he says.

Three of the 12 pins are limited editions, featuring the festival's mascot Monkey King. The other nine represent a spirit or attitude, such as justice, striving and solidarity.

The pins are designed by Tang Jun, a celebrated children's book illustrator and art supervisor of Versatile Media Co.

During the festival, nearly 100,000 badges will be released; prices will range form 10 to 30 yuan. Visitors will be able to trade them everywhere on the festival grounds, or at the designated exchange spot where there's a sign saying, "Hi, I have pins."

"Animation and cartoons mean happiness, and we believe encouraging people to exchange pins is encouraging exchange of happiness," Li says.

After the festival, pin trading will continue on www.hezi.com.