A big congrats to A big congrats to Jenny Liu, one of our 30 TDK Awards’ winners for 2018. A Billy Blue College of Design student from Sydney, their work was chosen by Johan from Brand Brothers: “Jenny combines a satyric approach with a search for simplicity that gives her work a mature and intelligent result. She understands the scope of the subjects she is dealing with, digs them out, and transmits a graphic material that seems to be aimed at the right target. Special mention for the handwritten typography of the AGDA project”. We asked Jenny to answer a few questions for next years TDK Awards’ hopefuls.
What has been some of the biggest lessons you’ve learnt along the way?
If you don’t ask, you’ll never receive. The worst thing is not rejection but that you didn’t try.
You are your own worst critic and you won’t love a piece of your own work for very long. Be critical but don’t forget to be kind to yourself.
Prioritise your focus. Branching out on different tools and skillsets is exciting, but design is a team sport, it’s more fun to collaborate.
Your life, your experience, your point of view are what make your work unique.
Stay curious. Never stop questioning. Take initiative and interrogate the brief. Call bullshit when you see it
Any passion projects/collabs you would like to share?
My mate Paul Conley (@paulconley.works) and I want to do work together outside of our daily work so decided to call ourselves NOHK and make it a design collective. We are working on a rebrand project for the Chippo Film Festival. We can’t wait to share more soon!
What/ who are your top five places or people follow online to get Inspo?
I constantly looking at these places for creative refuge. I’ve been reading two magazines lately, the New Philosopher and Flow. The New Philosopher is food for the curious mind. It inspires and challenges me to think about fundamental ideas – existence, happiness, society etc. Flow is a magazine from the Netherlands focused on creativity and mindfulness. Being a Scandi mag, it often talks about concepts that only exist in some Scandinavian languages. There’s always something new to learn.
Recently I fell in love with Heather Day, an artist based in California. Her work is pure visual ASMR for me and it’s what inspires me to do my current #36daysoftype challenge, to work on something hands on again.
Another thing I do to get inspo is to go to a bookstore in person. My favourite being Kinokuniya. I’m still very much in love with printed matter. I’d go in and pick up anything random and see how it goes from there. Last but not least, I’m a big space fan. I love pondering about distant stars and galaxies. Star Talk Radio is a podcast that brings pop culture and science together with the one and only Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. The man can explain anything.
What advice would you give students starting out?
The same advice I got from the ECD Mike Staniford when I was interning at Landor Sydney. “Hone in on your aesthetics. Gather a visual library in your mind so you can access it any time you want. ” Another piece of advice I got was from Jason Little, in a Creative Morning session a few years back about how to do well in an internship: “Take initiative, ask for work. Be the person who’s always switched on. Give opinion. Make yourself invaluable and dependable.”
Where to find Jenny Liu online.
Instagram: @jen_iverse
