Illustrations & credits

A consistent illustrated city

Our original illustrations bring Shanghai’s food, buildings and street trees to the page in ink and watercolor. They were created with AI assistance and are labelled as illustrations. Photographs have separate source credits.

A closer look at the food and buildings

These individual studies make dishes, cooking methods and architectural details easier to recognize. Food cutaways explain the contents; plating and portion sizes are illustrative. Building drawings are interpretations rather than measured elevations. The doorway and garden villa are labelled typology studies, and are not promises of access to a particular property.

Edward’s portrait

Photograph supplied by Edward from his professional portfolio.

Design & performance studies

Two original illustrations created with AI assistance: an imagined Shanghai atelier and a garment-construction study. These are editorial concepts, not photographs of a named store or product.

A personal photograph

The childhood photograph was supplied by Edward.

Coffee, tailoring and the creek

The dirty coffee drawing uses the same fine-line, restrained-color style as the other culinary illustrations. Its small tulip-shaped glass shows milk beneath espresso on a pale tabletop. It is an illustrative example within the contemporary tasting, rather than a named café or a fixed promised drink. The contemporary shopping and tailoring scenes are unbranded editorial drawings, not depictions of actual merchandise or a named atelier. The creek drawing preserves the two-span camelback form of Waibaidu Bridge; its surrounding walkway and planting are interpretive. The five history chapters use street studies with charcoal pavement and perspective lines. Rockbund, Union Church and the Zhapu Road Bridge approach follow visual references from Shanghai’s municipal tourism portal; street details are interpreted rather than measured surveys.

Brand marks

PANE, To Summer, MASONPRINCE, Songmont and nice rice marks are reproduced from their official websites for identification in an independent editorial guide. COMMON SCENTS is shown as a typeset brand name and links to the brand’s official social profile. These references do not imply endorsement or a commercial partnership.

Archive food photograph

Shanghai hairy crab (9 December 2009), by Kentaro Iemoto, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized and converted to WebP; the adapted image is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. It illustrates the dish and is not a photograph of Edward’s tour, a promised serving or the 2026 harvest. The photographer does not endorse this guide.

Field-note photographs & illustrations

Each note credits its lead image below. Brand and atelier photographs identify the work discussed in independent editorial profiles. Original illustrations are labelled separately.

Identity & typography

The Shanghaier’s identity pairs a compact doorway mark with a rooted-thread logo. The website uses Lyon Display, Lyon Text and Whitney.

Guqin music

Our optional accompaniment is Yangguan Sandie (阳关三叠, Three Refrains on the Yang Pass Theme), performed by Charlie Huang (Charles R Tsua) on guqin and recorded on 6 October 2013.

Recording via Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. Our web edition is offered under the same licence, with a quieter level, gentle opening and closing fades, and MP3 conversion. It plays only when you choose Play guqin music.