This collaboration began with a rare artistic rapport. In the intertwined realms of music and design, truly moving partnerships are always rooted in profound empathy and shared sensibility. As a trailblazing musician blending the guzheng with contemporary electronic music, Diner was selected as an Apple Music “Up Next” artist in 2022, receiving prominent homepage features across Greater China. Years ago, following a surgery that resulted in the loss of her uterus, Diner transformed the rupture of her body into the starting point for new sonic explorations. On penta, she returns to the roots of the pentatonic scale, weaving bodily memory into the rhythms of post-punk, electronica, and Hi-NRG dance music. The album was recorded in Brooklyn, New York, with Diner making her debut as producer and collaborating with Noah Prebish of Psymon Spine to create a distinctively deep, East Asian cyber atmosphere.

For Fang Jianping, his immediate response after listening to the full album was: “Vines bloom, growing upward.” This intuitive perception became the anchor for the entire visual system. He personally oversaw the visual identity for Diner’s debut, encompassing a bespoke typeface, vinyl packaging, and digital album covers. In the type design, “Penta” derives from “pentatonic”; Fang used the musical staff as a baseline, allowing each letter to manifest a unique form while adhering to a consistent set of rules—a design strategy that embodies a process where perception drives abstraction, then reifies it in concrete form.

His design language resonates with the regenerative force in Diner’s music, with every detail a celebration of life’s singular intensity. This harmony is no coincidence, but rather the shared choice of two artists confronting the complexities of life. “I remember seeing a silver fence on the streets of London—so full of sharp angles, yet blooming with the romance of fireworks.” When Diner shared this detail with Fang, he instantly perceived its visual tension. This cross-disciplinary dialogue made design an organic extension of the music, drawing the listener, at the very moment they encounter the album, into a holistic artistic universe shaped by both sound and vision.

As Diner herself puts it: “Fang Jianping extends my musical world through the language of design—embracing life in the face of death, creating a space beyond mere rationality, where music and design are interwoven with love, mortality, rebirth, and celebration. All of these dazzling elements are made manifest in this record.”