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Analysis and research of Tibetan pattern in cultural creation 
design 

Lu Tong, Jiongming Huang 
School of Art and Design, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, China 

Abstract. In recent years, with the development of social economy, cultural productivity has become 
more and more important in China's overall economic pattern. Tibetan has a long history, has a 
unique natural resources and cultural resources, is a product development provides an important 
material, on the other hand due to their own culture, the thought of aesthetic and improve, a single, 
homogeneous product on the market can't meet the demand of people, be badly in need of new 
design ideas to develop Tibetan gen products, The topic will be studied from the perspective of 
practical application. This paper focuses on the research of Tibetan local cultural and creative 
industry. Firstly, a large number of Tibet-related domestic and foreign literature are consulted to 
understand the current situation of tibet-related research. On this basis, the development trend of 
cultural and creative industry and successful cases related to cultural and creative products are 
analyzed and studied, providing ideas for the following product design. Secondly, in the study of 
Tibetan culture, the historical culture, geographical environment and artistic characteristics of The 
Tibetan are introduced. Through the analysis of Tibetan decorative arts, color patterns and other 
related cultural and creative case experience, the cultural and creative products of the Tibetan are 
designed. Finally, based on the analysis of relevant elements of Tibetan decorative art, Tibetan 
colors and patterns are extracted and summarized to achieve the combination of ethnic decorative 
art and modern design concepts, and the new design mode is integrated into Tibetan cultural and 
creative product design. This paper hopes to promote the inheritance of national culture and the 
development of Tibetan cultural industry through this design research. 

Keywords: Tibetan; Cultural and creative design; Decoration pattern. 

1. An overview of Tibetan culture 

The Tibetan people are distributed over a vast area and have a long national history. In the process 
of adapting to the relatively harsh natural environment, the Tibetan people have formed their unique 
social living habits. In the past, the tribes of Tibet lived in scattered communities, which formed a 
large whole after the establishment of the Tubo Dynasty, although a relatively complete bureaucratic 
mechanism was established. The study of Tibetan culture can deepen the understanding of Tibetan 
history from one side, which is conducive to inheriting and carrying forward the excellent traditional 
Tibetan culture, and on this basis, further explore the innovation and development of Tibetan culture 
in the new era. 

In the Tibetan culture, there are many festivals similar to those of other ethnic groups, but most of 
them still retain the traditional festivals of the Tibetan people with strong ethnic colors. Tibetans have 
their own splendid art and culture, and also have their own unique sports activities. Tibetan sports are 
also diverse, such as horse racing and archery, stone holding, tug-of-war, wrestling and so on, 
reflecting the colorful Tibetan life. For example, compared with the mainland, the Tibetan Spring 
Festival has more diversified forms, and its customs and culture have been almost completely 
inherited. 

2. Tibetan related pattern elements 

2.1 Geometric lines 
Tibetan pattern is the simplest pattern with the longest history as well as the simplest aesthetic 

expression. Straight lines and curves form various decorative patterns by changing direction, 
sequence and combination, which are applied to living utensils, clothing and architecture. They add 



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some spiritual sustenance to practical tools and bring certain visual feelings and aesthetic experience 
to life and production. As the most primitive graphic composition, geometric figures have been used 
until now, which can be said to be the living fossil of the development of Tibetan pictorial art. 

The main categories of Tibetan geometric decorative patterns are strip pattern, Shou character 
pattern, echo pattern, sky bead pattern, cross pattern and so on. Stripe is widely used in the state 
Canon in the form of parallel arrangement. Bandian is an important part of Tibetan women's dress, 
which is usually made up of colored and colorless horizontal stripes. Shou word grain shape round, 
shape lines constantly around, interspersed with each other, constitute an absolute symmetrical 
geometric decorative pattern. Hui word grain evolved from hui word, hui word has a standard 
geometric structure shape, its shape is rich, is given by the folk loop reciprocating, riches and honour. 

2.2 Plant patterns 
Some of the plant patterns are pictographs of plants unique to Tibet, and some refer to the 

traditional auspicious patterns of the Han nationality. The design that draws out after abstracting the 
line of the plant, have grain of roll grass grain, honeysuckle grain, entangle rattan grain to wait a 
moment commonly, these grain pattern has rich change on the line mostly, administrative levels 
strewn at random have send, have very strong adornment effect. Similar to other graphic patterns, 
plant patterns in addition to its own decorative art, or to place ideas, build the spiritual world of the 
material. Take the tangled vine lines as an example, which symbolize auspice and joy. It depicts the 
natural growth of rattan and curly grass, with a strong breath of life. The continuous lines reflect the 
continuity, which is used to place the beautiful yearning for longevity. 

2.3 Animal patterns 
Animal patterns mainly come from the animal images living in Tibet, with vivid shapes and 

complex structures. Commonly used dog nose pattern is two square continuous arrangement, mostly 
used in men's scarves, fur, etc. As a visual symbol of the cultural system, patterns not only convey 
the ideological content, but also generate new symbols with the construction of the new spiritual 
world. Therefore, some animal patterns are added to the Tibetan pattern system with the introduction 
of Buddhism, such as tigers, lions, elephants, etc. 

2.4 The text pattern 
Characters and patterns, from a wide range of sources, rich in meaning, with national 

characteristics. The swastika and swastika originated from the religious culture of Tibetan areas. They 
were first used by monks and then gradually developed into folk. It is to use some words as decorative 
patterns, compared to abstract pictures, words in the artistic conception of the expression is more 
direct, usually for some incantations. The Tibetan language itself, as a pattern, has a strong sense of 
art due to its unique writing style and highly decorative lines. Applied to the decoration of patterns, 
it can be combined with other graphics to convey a fuller meaning, and thus build up the rich spiritual 
world of Tibetans with such abstract and concrete image forms. 

3. Tibetan color decoration 

Color is the most direct visual impact to people and causes our common aesthetic intuitive feelings. 
In terms of expression, color has an intuitive impact on people's feelings. Tibetan colors are deeply 
influenced by natural environment, religious belief and aesthetic consciousness. Common to like 
Tibetan architecture, Tibetan mural decoration, household utensils, Tibetan costumes, thangka, etc., 
through the most directly reflects the Tibetan rich color, tibetans by many historical and cultural color 
expression to continue their find their own native art rule, expressed in these rich color and unique 
local conditions and customs of the formed the unique charm of Tibetan. 

Tibetan adornment art of color is the biggest reproducibility, Tibetan colour is bold, and more 
brilliant, is under the influence of religion, Tibetan makes Tibetan art to have the strong, the 



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expression of color in directly reflects the Tibetan people's emotion, jinding red color is embodied in 
the Tibetan monastery, colorful prayer, mysterious Tibetan opera masks, There are also colorful beads, 
which illustrate the Tibetan people's understanding of life. 

From within the Tibetan clothing, Tibetan architectural interiors, Tibetan murals for refined colour, 
overall, most of Tibetan art deco is given priority to with red, yellow, white and bright color is given 
priority to, use less dark, dress in dark blue, and black as the background, yellow for large area is 
used, mainly used for clothing store decoration colors, pink gold to cancel; The exterior of Tibetan 
buildings is mostly gold, white, brick red and a little black embellishment. 

In terms of the frequency of Tibetan color use, gold, yellow, red and white are the main colors, 
while black, blue and green are the secondary main colors. Tibetan color follow as close to the color 
supplement use complementary colors highlight way of collocation, the collocation of color close to 
the Tibetan art deco look levels more rich, the use of complementary colors make Tibetan pattern 
look more solid, more full, make the subject appear more prominent, Tibetan more willing to use 
highly pure color in the painting, make the picture contrast, has a strong visual impact. 

4. Tibetan decorative pattern design research 

Cultural and creative products are to create and improve cultural resources and articles with the 
help of modern scientific and technological means, and produce cultural and creative products with 
high added value through the development and application of intellectual property rights. A good 
cultural IP should have the advantages of high popularity, a certain audience, rich cultural deposits 
and other characteristics, aesthetic, function and connotation are indispensable. Extracting modern 
creative elements from ancient art is a benign way of development. , such as the Forbidden City wen 
gen pouch lipstick pouch to the Palace Museum collections for inspiration, selected the waist round, 
heart-shaped and gourd shape pockets, with a magnificent Chinese knot rope, package of bats, deer, 
cranes, butterfly, goldfish, like a variety of patterns, such as "fu, lu, shou, joy, wealth and auspicious 
wishes, etc, this kind of smoke cable pouch is hanging in the pouch, quality Most of them are "official 
products", and the production process is complicated, representing the highest technology of purse 
production in the late Qing Dynasty. Similarly, the application of Tibetan decorative patterns needs 
to be refined, processed and innovated from contemporary aesthetic standards so as to be truly applied 
in modern design. 

This design is closely related to culture, represented by Tibetan decorative art, combined with 
modern design methods, the development of a series of Tibetan decorative art cultural and creative 
products, this market positioning to Tibetan museum as the carrier, further in-depth cultural level and 
market level, do related cultural travel fusion souvenirs, museum souvenirs, etc.. At present most of 
the Tibetan culture industry related products stay in the machine processing and crafts products, more 
the development of the arts and crafts is more than just stay in the traditional craft level, handicraft 
product quantity is little, waiting period is longer, are mostly presented orphan works, although has 
the extremely high artistic features, but the high prices make a lot of people can only be away, 
Although mass products produced by modern machines have advantages in price, they lack design 
sense and innovation, resulting in no regional characteristics. 

5. Conclusion 

Tibetan is a nation with unique characteristics, unique development mode and unique national 
culture make Tibetan in the long history of continuous development, to the greatest extent to maintain 
the characteristics of the nation. The analysis of Tibetan clothing patterns and the application in visual 
communication design, to a large extent, let people outside the Tibetan culture, let the Tibetan culture 
out of the plateau, to the world, get more space for development. How to reasonably promote the 
development of Tibetan culture and its aesthetic advantages and apply it to visual communication 
design is an important content that can not be ignored at this stage. It should be more integrated with 



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the current social popular culture and development trend to keep pace with The Times. As for Tibetan 
culture, we should adopt the essence and discard the dregs rather than blindly copy it. We should 
absorb its excellent aspects and apply its highly ethnic clothing patterns in modern design, so that the 
characteristics of Tibetan culture can be popularized and seen by more people. 

References 
[1] Du Ya. Research on the application of Tibetan pattern in visual Communication Design [J]. 

Peony,2020(22):71-72. 
[2] HU Zhiyuan. Analysis on the artistic value of traditional Ethnic costumes from the perspective of "One  
[3] Wu Qionggrui. On the Characteristics and Cultural Connotation of Clothing in Different Tibetan Areas 

[J]. Popular Color,2021(04):44-46. 
[4] Zhou Yulan. Tibetan Clothing with Thick and heavy Colors -- On The Collocation of Tibetan Clothing 

and Colors [J]. Development of Qaidam Research, 2013 (02) : 46-49.] 
[5] Li Yuqin. Journal of xizang university (social science edition), 2009,24  (02) : 46-53. 

 


	1. An overview of Tibetan culture
	2. Tibetan related pattern elements
	2.1 Geometric lines
	2.2 Plant patterns
	2.3 Animal patterns
	2.4 The text pattern

	3. Tibetan color decoration
	4. Tibetan decorative pattern design research
	5. Conclusion
	References