Abstract: As an important carrier of cultural belief inheritance, artifact plays a crucial role in material culture development. This paper focuses on the interpretation of values embedded in Chinese artifact design. Bringing morphemic symbol based Chinese characters to artifact analysis, values hidden in artifact making is uncovered. First, the semantic construction of Chinese characters is divided into three layers: the “corporeal layer”, the “behavioral layer” and the “conceptual layer”. Then, conceptual blending theory is used to analyze the relationship between Chinese characters and design psychological response and the semantic relation model of Chinese characters and artifact design is built, including three steps of sensorial composition, behavioral projection and intellectual elaboration. And two kinds of relationships between Chinese characters and artifact design are further explored: the denotative relationship and the connotative relationship. Finally, a clear developmental trend of artifact design is drawn upon: from the “pictographic representation” to the “ideographic representation”.

Key words: design semantics, conceptual blending, Chinese character, artifact, material culture