We recently connected with Hieu Vu and have shared our conversation below.

Hieu, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

On deciding to be a motion graphics artist, I knew my fulfillment would come from using my craft to solve problems and to inspire anyone who watches my work. During my previous full-time gigs, I was content but always felt like there could be more avenues where my skills would be appreciated.

I love solving problems for clients. Brainstorming graphics elements, figuring out the best way to make them move, predicting what will the audience focus on in one particular scene, throughout the years, were skills that have become second nature to me. It was great fun watching my work being shown in a conference or during a sporting events.

However, there was an aspect of human connections that was missing from my work. I wanted to impress brands, but moreso, I wanted to inspire people.

As with anyone, my big shift happened during the pandemic, when I thought about the brevity of life and felt like I wanted to solve a bigger problem: How to reach more people using my work?

I started to make online content, Youtube videos sharing my knowledge and helping people achieving the level of work that I had. By the grace of social media, the responses have been heart-warming to say the least with people saying how much I have helped them improved their works and boosted their confidence to tackle motion design.

I am not exactly happier (as with any hustle of this kind, the amount of work is staggering!) than I was at my regular jobs but forever more fulfilled and grateful that I am able to influence people in a positive way using what is essentially my mode of self-expression.

Hieu, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I graduated in 2019 with a degree in graphic design but for as long as I could remember, I have been teaching myself motion design and animation as those were what seem to best captivate my attention. I am injuriously shy, but love telling stories, and care deeply about how my stories are being told. Motion design is the perfect medium. My heroes in this field, like Chris Cunningham, Cyriak and Phil Borst, are those who are meticulous about their final products, sometimes too far for their own good.

So far, motion design has been my only vessel. my go-to craft for when I wanted to help a brand convey the playfulness of their new identity, a client communicate sophistication of their brand new laptop or simply to help me and my wife invite distant friends and relatives to our wedding. All communications for me is best done through motion design.

I love bending the rules of design in general and blurring the line between art and practical designs. Sometimes it’s a simple shape that moves in an unordinary way or a scene that forces you to notice the details in the background in order to understand the narrative. Either way, the people’s reactions to those fine details fuel my drive to incorporate my own personal touch into everything I do, and I believe it helps opening them up to new ways of interpretation.

The same goes for my education contents. I take pride in providing people with a healthy amount of knowledge on motion design while not holding back on portraying my personality, through the occasional dry jokes and onset of physicality. I believe being my natural-self is the best way to reach the hearts of other people, and open them up to taking in information. And it truly pays off when my audience remarks how watching my videos feel like having a friend working along side you or how grateful they are to have me as their instructor.

My content aims to show people the ropes around motion design. Going beyond showing casual tips and tricks, the final products of my tutorials are not only complete artworks but also practical design pieces. I want people to take pride in their creations as it is one of the best ways to eliminate trepidation stepping into this field.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The more you hone your skills in trying to be an artist or designer, the more perceptive you become at realizing visual cues and recognizing patterns. It goes beyond remembering that red means anger or blue means sadness. It’s about becoming more sensitive to how your work engages with the viewers emotionally and developing your own voice in the field. The more you do that, the more your work become a more reflective and thoughtful extension of yourself. This at all doesn’t sound too rewarding until you start to incorporate it into life in general.

Humans tend to assign meanings to patterns that we recognize. What makes up a functional chair? What separates different dog breeds? etc. Being a creative tends to grant you an extra layer of curiosity, which leads you to asking more questions and assigning more meanings to your current existence. It helped me realize that there are many nuances that tie human, however far apart our backgrounds or different our languages are, together. Hence, helping you to essentially curate your own reality and becoming a more sympathetic person, so that you can find new patterns of understanding and come up with more unique design solutions to the human endeavor.

Blue doesn’t always means sadness. In the art world, blue helps calm and relaxes while in nature, it reigns, from the furthest sky to the deepest ocean.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Sometimes during my final year in college, I decided to make a breakdown version of one my video animation, essentially showing people what was going on behind-the-scenes with all the wireframes and moving parts. That quickly garnered more attention than my actual animation. I realized the people’s needs for an information/short-form tutorial channel regarding motion design and slowly pivoted my page to showcase art/breakdown videos. Every week I would upload a piece of motion graphics artwork, accompanied 2 days later by a behind-the-scene video, edited to my own taste. Unknowingly, I taught myself the habit of documenting my workflow. A few years went by and in 2022 I made my first long-form tutorial on Youtube, and so began my journey to give back to the community.

If you’re looking to build a social media presence, be generous in sharing your expertise and knowledge in the field. Always be of service to the audience. Not only do people like to see the final products but they also want to see the process behind getting those products through the finish line. Don’t try to blend in. Make something that feels personal, but you must provide knowledge.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hieuvudesign.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hieuvudesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hieuvumograph
• Twitter: https://x.com/hieuvudesign
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hieuvudesign