For Microsoft’s ongoing limited edition artist series (and to celebrate the “Year of the Snake”), we created a unique graphic treatment for the brand’s Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500. For this project, we collaborated with Shanghai-based designer Left.

The creative inspiration for this design concept comes from the ancient Chinese text called “Mountains and Seas,” which documents various facets of nature, geography, and biology. “Mountains and Seas” says that snakes rise from the sea each year and journey to land, only to return to sea at the end of the year. The snake is an important creature mentioned throughout the book. Furthermore, many monsters and gods that are mentioned in the book have human heads and snake-like bodies. An example of this is Fu Xi and his wife Nu Wa, the Chinese goddess who, according to legend, created the world and its people.

We took characters from “Mountains and Seas” and presented them in a style that is similar to the shadow-puppets that were used by Chinese storytellers in ancient times. The red seal at the base of the mouse is Left’s name represented in a traditional artist mark. The overall result is an inspiring cultural remix full of Chinese traditional imagery and modern graphic elements.