Fresh Faces: Grace Duong

Vernacular typography, underground culture and more

Grace Duong.

Grace Duong is a graphic designer based in Singapore, where she cut her teeth at local design agencies &Larry and Practice Theory. Duong’s style of work intuitively balances a commercial, polished approach with underground fashion and music influences. Growing up in Hong Kong, Duong’s earliest memory of graphic design is creating magazines out of drawings and comic strips for her younger brother. Here, we talk about her work processes, crafting a brand identity for F&M, some of her favourite graphic designers and more.

Party poster designed by Grace Duong. Image courtesy of Grace Duong.

Could you talk about your background? How did you start freelancing as a graphic designer? 

At first, I pursued  a Diploma in Fashion Design and then switched to a BA in Design Communication at LASALLE College of the Arts. I realised there were not many fashion jobs here. For the first four years of my career, I worked at local design studios &Larry, followed by Practice Theory. I’ve been fortunate to have worked on projects across industries, from finance to fashion.

At some point, I felt quite burnt out and I wasn’t gaining momentum at work. I took a year off work to take a year-long bootcamp in UX design, as I was considering a career switch. 

During this time, I took on several freelance projects to support myself. I realised I actually enjoyed the freedom and novelty of freelancing and decided to commit to it full-time. It’s been a fun journey so far!

What are some roles a graphic designer can take on?

Graphic designers have to wear many hats. Apart from designing, I am involved in brand strategy, art direction, copywriting, producing shoots and the list goes on.

Identity for Artifact bar in Hong Kong. Images courtesy of Grace Duong.

Identity for Artifact bar in Hong Kong. The symbol (on the left) is inspired by sci-fi architecture imagined by artists in the late-eighteenth century (on the right). Images courtesy of Grace Duong.

What kind of inspiration or influences do you see in your work? 

I maintain a pool of visual references which I update constantly on Are.na, an online software that allows me to save references and organise them via different blocks. I love it so much. It is different from Pinterest, which is algorithmically driven. Are.na feels more like a free online space to explore people’s inner worlds and obsessions.

I am drawn to prolific graphic designers who push the conversation forward: Virgil Flores and his work for Oklou, Nike and Margiela, Tracy Ma and her work for The New York Times and Homer, Han Gao for Fey Fey, Xander Zhou and Kappa are some examples. They inspire me to break out of my habits, and remind me to keep pushing myself.

Also, Bloomberg Businessweek is a publication I’ve looked at since I was in school. They have some crazy fun layouts.

Identity for Phoebe Pendergast. Images courtesy of Grace Duong.

When receiving a brief, what is your approach to every project? Are there themes that you find yourself gravitating towards again and again? 

Generally, when I take on briefs, I don’t just look at the surface of things. I like to strip it down into an idea or concept before working back to a design proposal. Even when there are clear references from the client, I try not to replicate them.

I make sure my relationship with my clients are collaborative. Lately, I have found visual benchmarking exercises to be helpful. Visual prompts help bring the client through different trajectories that the project can take on, and oftentimes we find that the initial brief is just the start, a jumping off point.

Coming up with new ways to use type has been central in my work, whether it is drawing a new letter form, logo type, exploring new layouts, or finding new ways to mix and match fonts. I am not a type designer, but I like it as a form of expression. Many logos are composed of words so there is a lot of potential. For example, the logo I designed for Australian fashion designer Phoebe Pendergast was cross-stitched by hand, scanned in, and digitised to bring out a nostalgic girlish quality which aligns with her work.

Identity for Fashion & Market. Video courtesy of Grace Duong.

Research into vernacular typography for Fashion & Market. Images courtesy of Grace Duong.

Can you elaborate on the recent rebrand you did for Fashion & Market? 

For F&M, the concept of the brief was to convey the marketplace as a place of exchange where diverse individuals come together to showcase their wares within the locality of Southeast Asia. I was conscious not to adopt a caricature or reproduce cliché notions of “Southeast Asian aesthetics” represented in Western media. I really liked the idea of vernacular typography found in Southeast Asia, where Eurocentric rules of “good typography” are ignored. I was particularly attracted to how fonts are mixed in unconventional ways.

In this case, I used a bold and very slanted, italic font to punctuate the identity and signpost information. This is mixed with a 19th-Century Grotesk font that is considered to be out of style (replaced by Neo Grotesks like Helvetica and its offshoots) and an expressive jagged Serif inspired by hand-cut signages. Theoretically, it is not supposed to work, but it does if you get the balance right.

For the website, I introduced a broad palette of background colours to complement the diverse individuals that F&M writes about. I thought each post could have its own flavour, and having a personalised background colour would highlight that. It also injects more fun and vibrancy into the website.

Ikat effect used on a banner at fashionandmarket.net and research imagery of Ikat textiles. Images courtesy of Grace Duong.

I also created an Ikat inspired texture that can serve as a background for text posts. Ikat is a textile technique found in almost every Southeast Asian country and I find it poetic that the word means “to bind”.

Ultimately, the identity is tied together by a strong wordmark logo. I also designed a symbol that can be tucked away inconspicuously in a corner of a page or image to give space to the actual content as the F&M team wanted the creatives to be visually front and centre.

What are some challenges you face as a graphic designer or creative practitioner and how do you overcome them? 

I think a big one is imposter syndrome. As a graphic designer, it can be hard to believe in yourself when there are a thousand ways you can improve your craft. Do you pick up 3D? Creative coding? Type design? Do you get better at animation, illustration, or photography? Not forgetting UX, for which I took a whole course.

I think it is great to keep improving yourself and expanding your skills, but it is also very important to believe in yourself and grow in ways you’re good at. I am trying to focus on my strengths and believe in myself.

Party poster designed by Grace Duong. Image courtesy of Grace Duong.

What plans do you have in store for your practice moving forward? Are there any projects that you are currently working on? 

I look forward to taking on more creative projects in the cultural space. 

What would a dream project look like? 

A recipe book. Or a title sequence for an independent film.