| In Creative Minds, we ask APAC creatives a long list of questions, from serious to silly, and ask them to pick 11 to answer. (Why 11? Just because.) Want to be featured? |
Name: Duy Nguyễn
Origin: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Places lived/worked: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Pronouns: He/him
CV: Concept provider, Happiness Saigon (2023-present)
1. How did you end up being a creative?
I had a sick desire to have authorial control over every aspect of a campaign. Prior to my current role, I worked on the client side and then became a freelance graphic designer. The whole time, I always wished I had been the creative to come up with the concept and steer the campaign's direction instead.
2. What's your favourite piece of work created by someone else?
It’s a commercial we made for the Audi Q7 that's about testing the car’s supreme urban driving capability by crossing an obstacle course. The challenge? To avoid waking a sleeping baby. It was a way to demonstrate our USPs to family-oriented buyers like no other, and it was so much fun to make.
3. What's your favourite piece of work created by someone else?
My favourite changes all the time, but the most recent one that stuck is ‘Clean Sponsorship’ by Consul—a detergent brand that sponsors a football club by removing the clutter of logos on their jersey (including the brand’s own logo). The brand then gives back a clean jersey to the team. I love it when the concept demonstrates the product’s USP in a surprising way.
4. What kind of student were you?
The insufferably directionless overachiever. I was a top student with scholarships, but I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to be. On the flipside, this led me to explore a broader palette of subjects in college, from advertising to social research, from painting to the applied arts.
5. Who’s on your dream dinner guest list (alive or dead)?
I have a list of three. President Ho Chi Minh, as the founding father of Vietnam, I bet he’s got some wisdom for every communication professional. Then, Kevin Parker—to ask the man behind Tame Impala to explain his gibberish lyrics and why they still sound so good and Conan O’Brien, so I can try (and fail) to one-up his improvisational skills.
6. What career did you think you'd have when you were a kid?
One where I wear a suit and speak in cursive. Now I wear baggy clothes and speak in sort of a bold marker font. What a turn of events.
7. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.
I worked for around a year as a freelance graphic designer. Though the pay was good, the thought of bringing someone else’s creative ideas to life while I had little say on them was too frustrating for me.
8. What really motivates you?
Visions of my creative concepts coming to life in my head. That kind of daydreaming really keeps me going. And caffeine.
9. Do you have any secret or odd talents?
Imitating accents. I once went to Melbourne, stole their accents, and brought them back with me. Then I did the same to my British friends. They hated it.
10. What’s your favourite music / film / TV show / book / other of the past year, and why?
I love Severance, a show about a group of workers whose memories are split between inside and outside of work, leading them to have multiple ‘selves’. It’s a simple concept executed extremely well—the kind of simple yet effective creativity I aspire to with my own work.
11. What's your favourite GIF/meme, and why?
The 'silence, brand' laser crab. As a creative whose work will inevitably address internet users, it’s always good to be reminded that internet culture is an ever-evolving juggernaut built by people. And when corporate entities try to sneak in with a little slang and an emoji, well, “silence, brand.”
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