Interview with M — N Associates

M — N Associates ("MâNA") interviewed on Tuesday, 24 July.

Could you please tell us about your experience as a designer, artist, architect or creator?

MâNA : Working as a designer in this young and challenging industry in Vietnam is quite tough and cool at the same time. I have no idea what happening next even scheduling everything extremely careful. Saigon is a chaos place where mixcultures are growing together and innovation happens everyday. And I'm really love working here, especially on branding industry, where it's the beginning of the new era, when business do care about having right branding design.

How did you become a designer?

MâNA : I started to study multimedia designer at RMIT University Vietnam due to my passion about working on film industry. However, opportunities after graduating kept driving me into agency jobs. Then I realized, I’m better at creating and designing, by applying knowledges and skills from making film. My design makes more sense and easier for clients to understand. After a while, I met M — Lan, with her knowledge on business and production, visualizing and producing craziest design in Vietnam, become much easier. Together, we found our firm to seek and resolve problems for business as well as sharing our knowledges for others.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

MâNA : I'm all about sustainable design, it worked for me when all the content, requirements and design harmonizing and supply for daily wants and needs.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

MâNA : Curious and ambitious for learning new things.

What particular aspects of your background shaped you as a designer?

MâNA : Marketing, entrepreneurship, storytelling, script-writing, content development, strategy planning and gossiping.

What is your growth path? What are your future plans? What is your dream design project?

MâNA : I just want my studio to grow steadily and sustainably therefore, I still have time to care for each of every project that comes from out studio.

What are your advices to designers who are at the beginning of their career?

MâNA : Keep learning and work hard, every project is a greater lesson than go to school.

You are truly successful as a designer, what do you suggest to fellow designers, artists and architects?

MâNA : For me, I'm just trying best to solve clients' problems.

What is your day to day look like?

MâNA : I have breakfast and coffee late, than reviewing works from designers, give them new tasks and start to work on other projects and replying emails. Then, maybe leave the studio around 6-7pm.

How do you keep up with latest design trends? To what extent do design trends matter?

MâNA : Reading design news, updating trends from European, Asian to American, studying new creative process, production process from other industries like plastic, glass, ceramic to interior, architecture for better understanding and easier for collaboration on greater scale.

How do you know if a product or project is well designed? How do you define good design?

MâNA : For me, it have to be logical. All developments of the design has to be meaningful and functional on certain criteria.

How do you decide if your design is ready?

MâNA : When there's no more to fix from us on design and production aspects, things could be limited in so many ways in Vietnam but if it reach the limitation of production capability and it releases with certain satisfaction from customers.

What is your biggest design work?

MâNA : My biggest design work is our studio, because each project has the same effort and consume an quite amount of time for researching and development, to be unique on the market and to be accepted. So it can't be judging on any particular project.

Who is your favourite designer?

MâNA : In-house anonymous designers that maintains great brands like Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Monocle, etc.

Would you tell us a bit about your lifestyle and culture?

MâNA : Our mix, young and hip culture is really affect my work. Combining with my reading on sustainable design from other cultures. I can create something unique and mixed here.And traveling is always a great habit to observe new lifestyles, cultures, find new daily inspirations and relax.

Would you tell us more about your work culture and business philosophy?

MâNA : I'm not easy to work with, and I have a great observation on people behaviour, so I'm quite selected to choose carefully who I can work with. Therefore, I could take down the risk of failure on communication which is one of the most common thing for failed projects.

What are your philanthropic contributions to society as a designer, artist and architect?

MâNA : Every of project from our studio that could be launched successfully is a social achievement for us because it is always working back and forward from end-users to our clients' aspect.

What positive experiences you had when you attend the A’ Design Award?

MâNA : Won Platinum and Gold Award on the first time attending. It's such a great journey to receive the award.

M — N Associates Profile