Marketing

Practice

Like many other designers, I started my career with marketing. I was born in 1993. One year later, in February 1994, the United States lifted its economic embargo against Vietnam and in June 1995, the United States and Vietnam normalized relations. During my childhood, Vietnam was still heavily influenced by the long-gone Soviet Union. Visually, this influence bled out on every poster, bulletin, ad, and banner, with red background and yellow text used as a simple and applicable universal template. When all you can see is hunger caused by the embargo against your country, most of the time, your mind does not have the capacity to look for something more than it needs. It does not mean that a more elevated visual language is useless; the country just did not think that visual appeal was a necessity. As we say: "Phú quý sinh lễ nghĩa"—"Plenty breeds pride, honors change manners". Once the country could be fed, and the people could acquire warm clothes to wear, then it would have the capacity to think about pretty things. Most of my childhood was fascinated by the quirkiness of Thai advertisements on Vietnamese televisions, something that was very hard to create within the country due to Vietnam's heavy system of censorship. However, seeing something unexpected, something rare among a sea of red and yellow, was definitely what drew me into the fields of storytelling and visual expression.