in the making of #vnw24 logo

unironically, inspired by timothee chamalamabingbong award acceptance speech at SAG, i hereby proudly present one of the biggest projects i have ever taken on - the making of VNW24 logo. it won't make much sense so, maybe just check my portfolio.

https://monicaha.my.canva.site/the-making-of-vnw24-logo

for starter, i think i almost died doing this shit and like it was insanity from the beninging like idk what to tell you lol idk why people support my decisions when they heard my pitch on the logo. like i know i was the boss and imma do it anyway but like why did no one, literally not one soul, tell me not to (i'm glad no one did tho hehe it was very gud idea i love the idea hehehe insert evil luagh).

also it was insange trying to actually execute it.

the idea was this:

so every year, we turn the original VNW logo (the yellow star with the red flower represented the Vietnam flag), into a stylized, thematic version that conceptualizes the theme of that year's events.

this year with the theme "Cầm Kỳ Thi Hoạ", my idea was to incorporate those things in somehow - so that's the first move.

but then i need to visualize the theme somehow, cannot just throw in some shape an call it a day, so the way i go with it was to find something, just SOMETHING, a shape, a silhouette, a thing, that can hold the patterns or the symple that can conceptualize the whole theme.

somewhere along the pinterest digging i realized that i was really drawn to the old traditional Vietnamese castle window, the round type that is normally designed with a stylized Hán Nôm letter with fancy patterns around it. Like this [please check the link i'm to tired to upload the pic].

And like, it’s just perfect for so many reason: it’s kinda round, so like, perfect for the logo design (cuz we just like it like that idk); in my head, it symbolize “a look into the life”, which is a sentiment that works with our storyline and like a look into the past (i’m so tired at this point i won’t bore you with the story); and like, it’s cute.

So that’s when i realized i can make the stylized Hán Nôm letter part with the characters “Tài” (才) and “Tâm” (心) - the symbol intelligence and heart, key values in the main character’s storyline. 

It took a while and tbh i don’t think that anyone can really see it but idk it looks cool af and not just for no reason.

The 2nd symbolism is the four traditional arts pattern—Music (Cầm 琴), Chess (Kỳ 棋), Poetry (Thi 詩), and Painting (Họa 畫). I have already had the vision of adorning it onto the window frames, drawn in the traditional flower pattern style. With this i got the help of the amazing kouhai Van Anh and she was such a sweet heart for redrawn and edited it so many times to make it fit perfectly into my imagination.

And lastly, the texture. I know from the beginning that whatever tf i’m gonna do, i want the combination of the embossed brocade embroidery textile texture AND the lacquer art texture and vibe.

So

I tried.

Deeply grateful 

for my VNW24 BĐH chi giang va ha tien for support and do the craziest shit with me, including the fact that they completely wholeheartedly believe in me and just let me be doing funky shit for the logo and branding

for the PR team and trang and toan like yall made me went insane a few times and because eachone of you had fucking different taste and opinion and all stupid rock heads so it took so long to come to a decision but regardless we were all in that together and i’m grateful for that

for my van anh you are amazing and i didn’t say i appreciate you enough

for you, just because.

for all the other people that joined in for the whole ride i’m sorry i’m slowly losing my insanity at this point in real time (i’m writing this at 5 a.m. after an all nighter at joyful - which btw thank you em amber for being there with me and all the other s)

for the year i was doing the internship and went to that one lacquer studio to do field work and fell in love with the art of lacquer (tbh having a big fat crush on the apprentice did help with the intensity of it all)

for the áo dài and the việt phục and the culture and the arts, for inspiring my brain and fueling the insane ride of it all.

for my laptop and the old ass ipad 8 for not giving up on me regardless of the severe abuse i put on them.

for patir 303 i miss my old place so much yall

for my old notebook that contained all my sketches, my ideas, my groceries list, my deepest secrets, my blood sweat and tears, my most gut-wrenching pieces of literature, all in one place

for my mom and my brother and my uncle just because (i think i let them down a lot during this era but at the end i think i make them proud too like that’s just the duality of a girl in their early adulthood years i guess)

for me. cuz like, guys, to loosely quote mister chamalamalabingbong, it might be classy to downplay the effort that went into this and how much it actually means to me. but i cannot lie—this was literally blood, sweat, and tears. not just this logo thing, but the whole vnw thing.

i’m really in pursuit of greatness. i want to be amongst the greats. i’m inspired by the greats. i want to keep creating, and i want to keep getting inspired. and this is just the very, very beginning of it all.

this whole thing, even when it’s “just a student event thing,” might seem like nothing to some people, like pfft just a childish thing. but for me—and i know for many of my comrades—it’s one of the few chances you get in life to do something this insane, this freely, with the pure intention of “just because you can.”

how many times in your life do you actually get to just randomly come together, pull off a week-long event-show-art-thing, for a whole-ass year, with no compensation, just, because?

so, it means something. It is something. Something meaningful and something impactful. I’m still young and this might not be that big of a deal and not that great for many other people. But to me and maybe (hopefully) for some others, it's worth the pain and it's worth the praise, at least by me, at least i need to be proud of my stuff to keep it going. I don’t want to get too deep into this hear cuz this shit starts to get too long and unrelated lol, but yeah just want to get it out of my chest. 

So, yeah. I think i should do more of these “in the making” cuz tbf i made a lot of shits. also i think i don't make much sense in this again very sorry.