GRAPHIC DESIGN LIFE.

I would say that everything happens between 8 and 5 is about work. I sit at my desk and I design. It’s me and my laptop, my notebook, my tea. So it’s me, me, me. I’m such a control freak that I would sit down and try to come up with the perfect layout for texts and images. But the overall process is a painful realization. For a long time, it’s only about staring at the screen and trusting for some kind of crazy moment to happen.

Simplicity is the key of graphic design. It’s my kind of perfection, the idea of starting out with a thousand different thoughts, then one by one throwing them all out, until I have one or two or three that are eventually essential to making sense of the whole image. Simplicity is the act of getting rid of everything that is not essential to making a point.

I have worked as a graphic designer for three years. The thing is I have never thought of it as a job. When you have done it for two or three years, all of the sudden it becomes the whole point of your living. It’s not. It’s living a smaller, extremely exciting life in a much bigger one. And living so is never easy.

I constantly feel the need to be in control and have a clear sense of what is working and what is not. On the other hand, I understand that being free-spirited is necessary. It’s crucial for me to develop those two personas separately. Be a much more ruthless editor and a much more careless graphic designer. It’s so fun and physically tiring. When my stress takes a toll on the work, I know I have to do something. People would say: “Relax. Take it easy.” But I can't. In graphic design, you take what’s blocking you, break them into little elements and rearrange them to make a statement.

Only after that will I loosen up. When I do, I start living my life out of the studio. There is a decoration shop owned by a writer that I like. He sells stuffs that make absolutely no sense whatsoever economically. It’s a totally different mindset. On the contrary, the bar of his, which is a few steps away from the shop, relates to me deeply. It’s where I always feel like “This is the place I want to sit and chill out.” There is this emotional exchange when people chat and suddenly silence happens. For couple of times, I’ve tried to work there because that’s how I see myself, the graphic designer being in touch with the selectiveness of the city.

It doesn’t work at all.

The impact on the work is zero. It’s even distracting. I can’t focus when I sit there. That’s when I realize my work and my life, they just don’t mix.

Basically, work is where the pressure begins then fades away. That’s the kind of tension I love though sometimes the effort in delivering the best work is out of desperation. Work is my second life. It’s about showing up, getting started and knowing something amazing will happen or nothing at all. What matters is you enable yourself a chance for something to happen. For that, you sit at your desk, sketch, move the mouse and make decisions while hoping for the best.

When I reach to the point of total worn-out, I imagine meeting the 2014 version of me and how things would happen. Perhaps I’ve lost the spark of the industry’s fresh face. However, I’m confident that I’d kick my 2014 butt. I believe you have to change directions while things are good. I’m in the beginning of my twenties and extremely ambitious. It feels fulfilled, but exhausted. Hanoi is the best place to work, just not a good one to refill your creative tank.

There's this saying in House of Cards: “Always march forward.” It’s true. The best work is never created by a spark of a moment but instilled by thousands of hard-working hours, multiple failures and even a friction of self-disbelief. In order to produce the purest kind of work, everyone must keep trying. In graphic design, my goal is to speak visuals and convey different ideas through the language. For that, I battle to refine the act of speaking and constantly produce. There will never be a work that is done because it’s the opposite of what I’m trying to achieve.