Meet Stacy Nguyen | Graphic Designer & Artist

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

Hi Stacy, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Funnily enough, I did not have a deliberate thought process when I started my business. I think that a lot of times, we assume that starting a business is a huge decision made by a person who has deliberated, prepared, has all their ducks in a row, and has written a business plan.

I was not this person!

I started my business in earnest after I was laid off my graphic design job at a corporation. Being laid off was such a blow to my self-confidence and I was pretty shaken by it, so I didn’t dive right back into the job market right away. Rather, I sat around my condo being depressed, wondering what I was even doing with my life, wondering how I was going to muster up the energy to update my resume — wondering if I was even hirable.

I ended up picking up small side projects during this time — a website here, a logo there — all the while biding time until I felt “better” and “ready” to start my career up again.

And you know what? I never actually felt “better” or “ready” about rejoining corporate life. It turns out that I was really enjoying doing short gigs! I could set my own hours, choose my own projects, and work with the people that I enjoyed working with most. I thought to myself, “I think I can do this for another year, if I budget well enough. I think I can delay ‘getting a real job’ for another year.”

My business has been going strong for more than 10 years now. I am now 10 years deep in putting off getting a “real job,” and it’s amazing.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m an illustrator, and my work often reflects Vietnamese American culture, through a colorful, humorous, pop-y, sometimes irreverent perspective.

I’ve always loved to draw, and that’s all I did when I was a child. However, because my family were made up of Vietnamese refugees, a career in an artistic or creative field seemed out of reach or unrealistic (because when you come from such turbulence and are in survival mode for most of your early life, you understandably seek out security and financial stability for your kids). My parents felt that art should be my hobby and my career would be something more practical. And so the journey to becoming an artist and owning a creative business was a bit of a winding road for me.

Post-college, I’ve dabbled in a few “serious career” kind of jobs — I worked in sales and finance, I’ve worked in journalism, and I’ve worked in corporate marketing — all the while dabbling with art on the side. And throughout it all, I was pretty miserable at points. Sure, money was consistent, but I also felt stagnant, bored, and also invisible and small in the world.

To make the shift from a 9-to-5 employee to a designer-artist-business owner, I had to really shift my personal values and give up a lot of ideas about success that I used to have. For instance, success used to be measured in salary, promotions, and job titles for me. I had to let the idea go that I was going to be a superstar with a fancy job title and a hefty salary that my parents could brag about to their friends. I had to embrace that, for a while, my parents would have the shame of telling their friends that I was “not employed.” (Haha.)

And you know, I actually found it liberating. Shedding off these frankly superficial expectations is liberating because at the end of the day, you are not working to keep up appearance. You are working for yourself, to pursue fulfillment for yourself that isn’t about money or status — it’s more about: “Am I doing something meaningful for me? Am I enjoying the work that I do? Do I feel seen and heard and understood by those around me? Are we having fun?”

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?
I want to give my former colleague, Han Bui, a shoutout. She’s an incredible graphic design and back in the days of 2008, I was a recent college grad working as a news editor as a weekly community newspaper with her. I would enviously look at her work and think that what she was capable of was SO COOL, but that I couldn’t possibly do what she did. I was so nervous and new and insecure!

Han took the time and the care to be a really incredible friend to me. She encouraged me to pursue graphic design on the side, mentored me (by actually teaching me how to use programs and how to prep files for print), and would show up to my house on weekends to take photos of my work so that I could make a really nice portfolio to show potential clients.

Incrementally, Han supported me and helped me build up my confidence, so that I was able to make the leap from journalism to design work. We are great friends to this day, and I am so lucky to have her in my life!

Website: https://stacynguyen.com/

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacyngu/