Dear Sir or Madam:

Once a designer of the Duetch Design Company (Netherlands), I am the youngest professor of Graphic Design at the Central Academy of Art and Design, the leading higher-learning institution of its kind in China. I now take the pleasure to recommend to you a promising student of mine for acceptance into your graduate program.

Mr. Gong Yishu first impressed me in my class of poster design. Of all the students who were listening to my lecture, he was the only one who pointed out a problem in a poster, and it turned out later that he was right. But making a critical comment about my work required both perceptiveness and courage. At the time, all the Academy’s students looked up to me as I had just come back from Europe, where I was part of a famed art exhibition. He thus struck me as a young man who could have a promising career in graphic design, because I think good graphic design requires the courage to imagine and to express. So, I made friends with him.

With an understanding of the Chinese culture that is unusual for someone of his age, Mr. Li produces designs and other artistic works that are distinctly Chinese, imbued with Chinese values and traditions. He knows that, as a designer in china, he is first of all a Chinese artist serving Chinese audiences. Towards this end, he has successfully fused the old with the new, and the theoretical with the practical, and the emotional with the spiritual. Inherent in his artistic creations is the ethos of an Oriental culture that dates back five thousand years.

I think Mr. Li is well cut out to become a world-class artist, as he desires to be. He knows that an artistic creation has to be deeply embedded in the artist’s own culture if it is to be of any enduring value to the world. Conversely, he understands that he must draw inspiration from other cultures if he wants to satisfy the dominant tastes of the modern Chinese. His designs so far represent courageous and fruitful efforts to bridge the gaps across East and West civilizations.

We share the idea that designers must communicate and cooperate with each other. Mr. Li always communicates with all kinds of people, from professors and his classmates to the shop clerks and even passers-by who stopped at the Academy’s gate. He thinks that, to make his design simple but sophisticated, this kind of communication is very important. He almost always asks me a few questions when he meets me, and I usually feel the questions he submits merit discussion. We often talk about them. We both draw inspiration from such conversations, inspirations that we turn into graphic designs.

As a quality undergraduate student, he has demonstrated great intellectual potential, which he can readily tap in his graduate studies for the realization of his ambitions. I hereby lend my full support to Mr. Li’s application, and shall greatly appreciate your favorable consideration.

Yours sincerely