VFCD 2021 Key Visual
A playful tile system inspired by Vietnamese flora and traditional decorative motifs.
Created for the Vietnam Festival of Creativity & Design 2021 key visual competition, this identity reinterprets floral and plant motifs found in Vietnamese sculpture and reliefs as modular patterns inspired by cement tiles. The result is a bright, youthful system that can be rearranged into many different compositions.
Roles
Visual Designer · Illustrator
Areas
Visual Identity · Pattern Design · Illustration · Graphic Design
Turning cultural motifs into a modular system
The concept began with motifs commonly associated with Vietnamese visual culture: the lotus, phoenix blossom, apricot and peach blossom, and bamboo.
Each carries a different meaning—from national identity and resilience to youth, creativity, spring, and renewal—so I translated them into four distinct pattern families rather than creating one fixed graphic.
"Lotus represents Vietnam; Phoenix Blossom reflects youth, passion, and creativity; Apricot and Peach Blossoms suggest spring and renewal; and Bamboo references resilience and Vietnamese craft traditions."
Designing like a game of tiles
I reworked the motifs into square modules inspired by Vietnamese cement tiles, then built each layout on a grid.
Illustrated tiles are used selectively, while smaller colour blocks fill the remaining space. The process is intentionally simple: fill the grid, balance the patterns, and keep rearranging until the composition feels right.
This gave the identity a playful logic while preventing the highly decorative motifs from becoming too visually crowded.
"Large illustrated tiles and smaller colour blocks can be rearranged within a shared grid to create different compositions without losing the identity."
One system, many combinations
Because the patterns are modular, each motif can work independently or combine with others to create new visual variations.
Bright, saturated colours give the system a youthful tone, while the repeating tiles keep the identity recognisable even as the compositions change.
The same logic was then extended across portrait and landscape posters, social media templates, profile graphics, and merchandise, showing how one small set of visual rules could support very different formats.
"The pattern system was adapted into Facebook covers, profile graphics, event posts, and speaker templates rather than relying on one static campaign image."
"The identity was also applied to objects including tote bags, phone cases, cushions, and lanyards, testing how the modular system behaves beyond flat graphics."
