Hi there! I'm a graphic designer specializing in print media but drawing is my main passion. This is my art blog where I put my paintings, designs, sketches and fashion infographics.

nancyduong.com

When I’m not illustrating, I’m graphic designing!

Here is a design collaboration with VGX Design (project director and the biggest paper geek I have ever known). 

The business card is specialty printed on silk with spot UV. The client is a painter by trade and initially wanted his logo to contain multi-color paint splatters. MANY concepts later, the logo became a Resplendent Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala, to reflect his heritage.   

I spend most of my time doing graphic and print design nowadays. Once in a while, I get to be able to design and illustrate (and practice my non-existant photography skills)! This gatefold wedding invitation was tricky but very fun to work on! 

Kimono by Liza Dalby

“In the sixteenth century, the nobility ceased to be the sole source of fashion inspiration. Playgirls (asobime) – multitalented, trendy ladies who led rather public lives (sometimes glossed as ‘courtesans’) – wore their kosode belted with long tasseled silk cords. The cords, called Nogoya obi, were woven according to a style then popular in China, roped about the hips six or seven times, and tied in a looping bow.” (Dalby 37)

“Playgirls also did their hair into Chinese chignons, initiating a fashion for women to put up their hair. In previous ages, men had been the ones to oil and arrange their tresses. Women had favored long straight locks, or perhaps a simple ponytail.” (Dalby 37)

“Late Edo fashion for women was undeniably restrictive. […] Hairstyles for women had developed into the elaborate comb-studded coiffures familiar from woodblock prints. With such a coiled oiled structure on her head, a woman couldn’t even sleep freely. Finally, the practice of applying lead- and mercury-based whitening cosmetics, originally a custom limited to the noblility, had now spread into common popularity. By the nineteenth century, being fashionable was truly hazardous to a Japanese woman’s health.” (Dalby 50)

Thought it would be fun to create a series showcasing nth century fashions of the Sinosphere (aka the East Asian cultural sphere/Confucian world, countries culturally influenced by China). I decided to depict middle to upper class women and avoided royalty, concubines, dancers, and so on.

If I am able to find adequate references, I’d like to do a series for the Indosphere (India-influences on Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, etc), Pacific Islands, Middle East, etc.