Pien Shyu
GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGNER
Pien is a graphic and web designer who also builds archival web tools. With a background in graphic design + visual communications, she earned her master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she explored the intersections of design, interactivity, human, and technology. Her creative expression wanders between printed matter and the World Wide Web, constantly seeking connections between the two worlds. Growing up on Tumblr, she developed a deep interest in image curation, the patterns of blogging, and digital archives.
She is inspired by the sense of place and self, fashion, everyday objects, and the impish side of the Internet.
She is inspired by the sense of place and self, fashion, everyday objects, and the impish side of the Internet.
SEP 30, 2025
Pien Shyu is a web designer who treats the internet as both an archive and a playground. Her web-based projects collect and reimagine digital traces, creating interactive experiences that capture the nostalgic memory and fragmented nature of online life.
Let's start at the beginning. How did you first enter the world of visual and digital design, and what experiences shaped the way you see design as a medium today?
Growing up, I was always pretty artsy and liked pretty things. I also read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies, and the graphics on the covers or posters were always one of the biggest things I paid attention to. And I LOVED collecting Japanese snack packages. I wanted to design candy wrappers and cookie boxes for a Japanese snack factory so badly as a kid. But also, I think being on Tumblr and becoming interested in fashion and photography in my preteens was when I really started building my own aesthetics and wanted to explore my own creativity.
Let's start at the beginning. How did you first enter the world of visual and digital design, and what experiences shaped the way you see design as a medium today?
Growing up, I was always pretty artsy and liked pretty things. I also read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies, and the graphics on the covers or posters were always one of the biggest things I paid attention to. And I LOVED collecting Japanese snack packages. I wanted to design candy wrappers and cookie boxes for a Japanese snack factory so badly as a kid. But also, I think being on Tumblr and becoming interested in fashion and photography in my preteens was when I really started building my own aesthetics and wanted to explore my own creativity.
That early attraction to collecting—from snack packages to Tumblr aesthetics—seems to have evolved into curating digital aesthetics in your practice. What is it about memory, data, and digital traces that you find compelling to rework into design?
I subconsciously pay attention to and observe little details in my day-to-day. Revisiting and tracing them back is always an interesting concept to me. We spend 24 hours a day doing whatever shit, there must be something worth mentioning lying within, or worth noticing and turned into something creative. Or simply just think about or share with people. Conversations, habits, patterns, something unusual, or something very mundane. We often do it already digitally, too. Screenshots, text messages, Instagram stalking(as one does), browsing histories, etc. I think making projects and creating narratives based on what has already is so fun.
Your projects often feel like dream archives—interfaces filled with fragments, traces, and images. How would you describe the atmosphere or sensibility you try to create through your work?
When it comes to my personal project, I often portray a scene that is reminiscent of girlhood and playfulness. I like the combination of real-life images and digital silhouettes. I love playing with texts and details too. With certain colors and textures, I gravitate towards them altogether; they appear to have a dreamy and whimsical undertone. I think what I create very much aligns with how I like to dress. Textures, accessories, and statement pieces. Romantic but make it alternative.
"Romantic but make it alternative" comes through in how you approach storytelling. Even in abstract projects, there's a sense of narrative, whether through layering, pop-up windows, or curatorial arrangements. How do you think about storytelling in your practice?
My creative process usually stems from a board and abstract ideas. Sometimes I can't even put them into words, but I have a clear direction of where I want it to lead. Websites are such a good medium for me because I can build my narrative with images, graphics, texts, links, and the nature of the digital space interactions, etc, in a non-linear way.
Much of your work lives at the intersection of interface and image. When you design for the web, do you think of the site as a functional tool, a gallery, or something else entirely?
I think websites are so interesting, a 2D medium that breaks the boundary of spaces, where distance is 0 from subject to subject. One second you are here, and the next you are somewhere else. I think we are so used to getting transported all over the place in the digital world that we forget this is such a surreal concept.
I make websites for lots of purposes, but I like to think of websites as actual physical spaces. I think about how I want to make users feel when they enter the space with visuals and interactions.
Do you think of your design process more as building systems, as composing imagery, or as curating experiences?
I think everything is sort of a mix of everything you mentioned. Curating the experience is definitely crucial because it holds the entire project together. Sometimes I have to remind myself that the audience only gets what is put in front of them. How I want them to feel or how I want to guide them through the piece is what's important to me. Based on the tone of the experience, I can have fun with the compositions, layouts, functions, and all that.
Interaction seems to be a quiet but important part of your projects—clicking, browsing, encountering. How do you see the interactive function in the way people experience your work?
I always like to experiment with different interactions, and I think that's the most playful element that websites can achieve. It's very dynamic, and the experience can be different every single time. Some people scroll before clicking, some people go straight ahead to opening up new windows, some people are obsessed with refreshing the web for a new generated outcome. I think it is also very fun for me to observe how everyone interacts with my project. It's always a surprise for them and for me as well.
You're working on projects like your thesis, Josephine, and exploring typography and tattoo art. What kinds of projects or directions would you like to explore next, and how do you imagine your role as a designer evolving?
I'm very into typography recently, and also freehand doodling. Definitely very inspired by tattoo art. And I like to think about how I can transform or combine them with coding, or what they can add to an experience on the web. Discovering new libraries for coding is fun for me too, and also archiving! I'm always trying out ways to archive things, whether it's on different platforms or building my own tool. My thesis project, Josephine, is still going on, and I love talking to Instagram archive account owners or people working for magazines about this topic. As a designer, especially when it comes to making tools, I think figuring out what can actually help myself is always a good exercise, and then of course, getting to know what can make things possible for others, too. And make it pretty<3.