Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine Cover

As an ode to my favorite video game of all-time, I designed this EGM magazine cover, featuring none other than Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Heroes Too Logo/Identity Redesign

This was the final project for my Art Direction I class in Spring '09. The assignment was to design a company logo for Heroes Too which is a start-up social enterprise concerned with global warming and other environmental threats. It is dedicated to encouraging, connecting and channeling the participation of individuals to create a collective and lasting response to the environmental threat facing humanity. They are planning to launch the company globally in the future and so it is our chance to show our design to the world.

The target audiences are environmentally conscious individuals, students and young people, schools, community organizations and corporate partners. The tone & manner is supposed to be inspiring, uplifting, personal or engaging, focusing on the "human element" side instead of just the "environmental" side. One to two colors are preferable, but more colors considered for really good design. The typeface & font are to be light, modern and smart in style. No heavy or bold font. Variations of Heroes Too are allowed such as H2 or Heroes 2. Lastly, professor doesn't want an over-emphasis on 'green', a commercial or corporate look & feel, too fancy or heavy, blunt/bold typefaces.

Logo 1: The font used was Orson Casual, I particularly liked this font because the O's were perfect circles, and so I could incorporate the earth into the logotype. I wanted to execute it much better than the original logo, all the while trying to avoid being cliche. Focusing on the human element, I thought that one hand reaching out to another is a really strong image of helping one another accomplish something really special. As one you can be strong, but together we can be powerful beyond measure, and so I utilized the silhouette of one hand reaching out to another as a part of the O in Heroes.

Logo 2: For this logo, I went for a different, more modern approach, aiming for the future. Particularly I wanted to play with ligatures. By connecting the horizontal bar of the H with the curve of the two, a unity was created. Heroes Too is all about coming together as one and making a difference in the world. The light blue color is refreshing and definitely has a clean feel to it.

Logo 3: If I was to choose one of the 3 logos to recommend, this would be it. I went through the entire design process in the presentation for this logo and I felt it best represented the Heroes Too brand image. The type is Futura LT Book Italic. I felt that this typeface was perfect because it stood out more than the other choices such as Helvetica Italic and Myriad Pro Italic, but it wasn't too domineering. For the colors, I thought the green and gray went together quite well, creating a unity between the Heroes and the 2. The smoothness of the 2 as well as the pointed edges are meant to invoke swift action in the target audience to get up and take action. Perhaps the most important element of the logo is the fading earth below the 2. By fading the earth, it gives the viewer a sense that there is something more to the logo. It gives them something to be hopeful for.

Introducing The Apple MacPad Chameleon

This was the final project for my Interactive Media & Advertising course in Spring '09. The assignment was to test our cumulative knowledge of the unique ways in which interactive destinations can tell a brand story. As a part of the assignment, we were to devise 3 creative comps - 2 of the homepage, and one sublevel page. The product I chose was the Apple MacPad Chameleon, which is a made-up product that I thought up in my Strategy & Positioning course last Fall. The MacPad Chameleon is Apple's first netbook. The main USP of the MacPad Chameleon is that it allows for the user to change the color of their netbook to a variety of 9 different colors. The target audience is females ages 18-25 in college who are avid users of social media, and quite fashionable.

Ultimately, I wanted to design sleek and clean creative comps that didn't stray from Apple's current brand image. The first creative comp is the homepage of the Apple Store taking a more traditional approach. The second creative comp is brighter and overall has a different tone and feel. The third creative comp is a sublevel page from the first comp. The sublevel page is the Mac page of the store. I wanted to keep everything consistent with the homepage, creating a fluid and positive user experience for the target.

iMotivate iPhone App

This was the final project for my Advanced Special Topics for Ad Majors course in Spring '09. The final deliverables were, 1) Full color logo/branding presented professionally in Illustrator. 2)App Icon, which is the icon that appears on the iPhone screen for our app. 3)Screenshots showing our app in action. And 4)One page magazine ad created in InDesign.

I named my iPhone app, "iMotivate," because essentially the app serves as a motivational tool for whenever the user may need it. We all need a little motivation in our lives, and so the iMotivate features famous motivational quotes as well as user submitted. Motivational clips from popular movies such as Rocky VI are also utilized with the iMotivate. The logo design is meant to be the company that created the iPhone app and so I decided to brand myself. "nbk" are my initials backwards, and Vietnam is my home Country, and so I wanted to combine the two. I went through the logo design process from sketches, to pc generation and to color. For the app icon, I kept it simple, showing the silhouette of a man raising his arms in accomplishment. The screenshots are mockups of what the interface of the iMotivate will look like. Everything on the screenshots were created from scratch aside from the iPhone itself. The magazine ad speaks for itself in that you can achieve your goals with the help of the iMotivate app.

Italian Market Creative Comp & Interactive Promotion

This is a creative comp I designed for my Interactive Media & Advertising course in Spring '09. This comp is a redesign of the original Italian Market homepage. This was part of a semester long group project, which was broken into 3 separate phases. The proposal, the discover/explore phase, and finally the explore/create phase. For the project, we were to show our ability to effectively manage and harness the power of the team to arrive at breakthrough interactive solutions for our client. Since so much of the web is filled with half-baked media plans and haphazardly organized content, this project stressed the role strategy and positioning plays in determining how our audience will engage our brand in online or interactive media. As a part of the explore/create phase, this was one of our creative executions for the new look and feel for the Italian Market, which is a fresh and fun approach.


We were also required to include a specific tactic recommendation to promote our brand. For our interactive promotion, we decided to place ATM screens throughout the Philadelphia area, as this would be a common touch point for all of our target audiences, which were tagged as 1) Out of Town Adventurers, 2) Thrifty Locals, 3) South Philly Natives, and 4) Gourmet Chefs. We also thought that this would be a great way to get a direct response from users and track our measures of success because we can see whether or not they're using our coupons.

Absolut Vodka Triplets

Art Direction I - Spring '09
The assignment was to find a single page ad in any magazine, that feels campaignable, and create/design/layout the next ad if it was part of the campaign. The top ad is the original Absolut print ad introducing mango to the collection of Absolut vodkas. Below it is a "triplet" ad I created that is intended to mirror the original in execution. I executed the triplet to the best of my abilities, and I think it turned out pretty well. I wanted to recreate the original by using the same underlying template, compositional structure and elements, including typography. However, instead of using Absolut Mango, I chose to introduce Absolut Ruby Red, featuring a delicious grapefruit as the focal point. Through careful examination, I determined that the type used for the headline is Tw Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold, and Tw Cen MT was used for the rest of the copy.



Here are two more triplets I created of the Absolut Vodka, In an Absolut World campaign. These particular ads are different from the first ad from above. Instead of introducing a new flavor, these ads portray a fantastic/ideal world, all because of Absolut, hence, In an Absolut World. The campaign has been around for a while now, and has been successful in many different countries. I wanted to exaggerate the necessity of having Absolut Vodka, by stocking an entire refrigerator with it. The first ad is an exact triplet with the same headline, "In an Absolut World," and the second one I thought up a new headline that I thought was equally effective, "Absolutely Necessary."

AT&T Minutes TV Spot

Here is a new TV spot for AT&T Rollover Minutes I put together for my Creative Thinking course in Spring '09. The goal was to put a surprising spin on the current Minutes campaign as things can often become tiring after a while. According to the brief, the advertising was intended to appeal to the TA in a humorous way to get non-users to switch over to AT&T. The target is M&W, 18-35, economical and tech savvy. The tone is a humorous approach on a common occurrence.

Image Credits: Getty Images & YouTube