Wang Jiayue looks slightly shy, typical of a fresh graduate.

The young designer in her early 20s recently completed her animation degree at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom.

Last year, while searching for a turning point in her career, she found one in the "Heart of Beijing" Perfect World Campus Art Design Award competition.

"It's an international competition and calls for creative designs featuring traditional Chinese culture. I figured it would be a great testing ground for my learning and to push myself to complete a full project from start to finish," recalls Wang, originally from Northeast China's Liaoning province.

With the Year of the Snake approaching, she settled on drawing inspiration from the zodiac reptile for a serpent-themed pen.

Her first challenge was how to present the snake — often seen as fierce in traditional culture — in a gentle, auspicious way. She experimented with floral motifs and gourd patterns before settling on the lotus, creating a composition in which a serpent coils gracefully around the flower.

Wang insisted on hand-drawing the linework, believing that "hand-drawn textures carry warmth that digital lines can't replace".

Her design eventually stood out and won the people's choice prize out of hundreds of works by students from home and abroad during the "Heart of Beijing" competition that concluded on Nov 10, with an award ceremony at the historical Zhihua Temple in Beijing's Dongcheng district.

Hosted by the Dongcheng district bureau of culture and tourism and the gaming and film conglomerate Perfect World, the event celebrated outstanding achievements across several categories, including product design, international short films, and digital art.

This year's competition has continued to expand its influence, drawing entries from more than 700 universities in China and abroad, says Wang Tiefeng, head of the Dongcheng culture and tourism bureau.

"It not only continued to explore fields such as cultural and creative design and film and media, but also introduced new forms of experimentation that injected momentum into cultural inheritance and innovation," he adds.