Meet Benjamin Hong: Visual Development Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Benjamin Hong and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Benjamin, what inspires you?
Personally, a lot of my inspiration comes from appreciating and finding ways to enjoy any medium that comes from emotion, from photography to food, music or man made objects as well as nature. Thinking about the design choices being made from the respective artists constantly inspire me about how people problem solve aside from just visual. Learning about their intentions and emotional drives always give me new ways to experiment with my craft.
Like for example, thinking about how the yellow-orange from an egg can match very nice with the purple red lighting from a music video.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I at least hope that one thing that could set me apart are two things;

1. I enjoy mixing and matching mediums and colors to explore what can be done to have a unique feel to my work, so it can seem simple at first glance, but have a lot of complex abstraction when looking into the work.
2. Emotional expression/Instinct is such a great source of inspiration. Traditional rules and skillset are the foundation to an artist and academic skills are important, but there can come times where personal taste & experimentation can help push for some amazing artwork!

That being said, a lot of lessons that I am grateful to learn along the way is how everyone has their own process, and there’s so much to learn when it comes to doing the same job. Everyone has their own way of doing things, while paying attention to specific aspects of a piece, so I love learning about their thought process.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, personally I find a person can have fun anywhere in different ways, but one of my favorite experiences/places would have to be traveling around Little Tokyo. I personally love food, so I would go on an eating tour with friends! Theres a udon shop called Marugame Monzo, and i am in love with their Uni Cream Udon, Jin Ramen, and this Green Tea Ice cream place called Tea Master. I also love just walking around the city and looking at the buildings around downtown LA. The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
A shoutout also goes to my friends & artist community who I am extremely grateful for. They always help with finding inspiration and learning more about different tastes than I am used to, and give me a chance to learn more on connecting with emotions and human connection, which I believe is extremely important with the art/design process.

Website: http://www.benhongart.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benhongart

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/benhongart

Other: https://www.artstation.com/benhongart