Creative Minds: Why Kelly Phan thinks creativity should feel like home

Name: Phuong (Kelly) Phan

Place of origin: Hanoi, Vietnam

Places lived and worked: Hanoi, Vietnam, Upstate New York, Rhode Island, Sydney

Pronouns: She/her

CV:

• Visual designer, RGA Sydney, December 2024 - present
• Associate designer, RGA Sydney, September 2022 - December 2024
• Graphic designer, Fragments Theatrical Production 2020 - 2022

1. How did you end up being a creative?

Since I was young, I have had a passion for arts and crafts, starting with stickers and drawing which eventually grew into a long-term hobby. Throughout high school, I continued exploring drawing, painting, and other traditional art forms. I first discovered graphic design in tenth grade, when I became curious about Illustrator and decided to take a class. The moment I first used Illustrator, it felt like the missing piece of a puzzle—it just clicked. I stayed up all night learning the tool. With each new skill I picked up, I felt a spark of excitement that warmed my chest. Even today, when I design, I still feel that rush—like it’s the first time—as if my creativity is blooming all over again. That’s when I realised graphic design was truly my passion.

I was lucky to have my parents’ support to pursue a creative field at university. My journey really took off at the Rhode Island School of Design. It was there that my creativity was pushed and tested as I experimented with installations and explored the intersection of traditional art and design.

After university, I looked for opportunities in New York and Sydney. I was fortunate to meet Ben Miles, my current boss, who saw my potential and brought me aboard to work with the BDC team at RGA Sydney.

2. What’s your favourite piece of work in your portfolio?

Nét Chữ Nết Người (Handwriting Character) is my senior thesis, exploring five display typefaces inspired by my family’s handwriting, their personalities, and my relationship with them. The installation is color-coded to reflect their favourite colours.

Part 1: Their Handwriting

The first part of the installation, ‘Their Handwriting’, features a 4-foot typographic chandelier crafted with various wires and fishing lines. This handmade sculpture showcases my process, from initial handwriting samples to the development of full typefaces. It serves as a visual representation of my journey analysing and designing typefaces based on the unique handwriting of my family members.

Part 2: Them

The second part consists of five 12.5-foot scrolls lined with coloured-fabric and illuminated to cast a soft hue on the wall. Each scroll features a fond memory my family has shared with me, alongside three words they chose to describe themselves. There are also RISO-printed, spiral-bound booklets that offer a deeper dive into my process, detailing how I translated my family members' handwriting, personalities, and our relationships into the typefaces.

Part 3: Our Family Dinner

The final part of the installation, ‘Our Family Dinner’ is a personal reflection on the rare moments my family gathered for a meal. With members scattered across different countries—my mom and brother in Australia, my dad and grandparents in Vietnam, and myself in the US—a shared family dinner is something we all longed for. This typographic ‘meal’ features laser-cut masonite and acrylic dishes, vinyl-cut lettering for bowls and plates, hand-stitched napkins, and a central soup bowl (bát canh) with spray-painted letters and recipes of our favourite meals. A very special interaction I incorporated in the installation is the mini process booklets are spiral-bound together but with notches in the spirals, so one person can hold the book while another helps break it apart into individual booklets, mimicking the intimacy of sharing a dish with your loved ones.
The installation also includes hand-drawn typeface drafts, full alphabets, names, and colour paper, emphasising the connection between family, food, and design.

3. What’s your favourite piece of work created by someone else?

Do Ho Suh’s installations have always left me in awe with his ghostly, beautiful depiction of “home” in relation to space, his identity, and the intertwining relation between space and emotions. He focuses on creating architectural recreations through soft sheer fabric, which in his words, is an “act of memorialisation.”

On visiting his installations, you immediately feel a sense of nostalgic sombreness as you immerse yourself in the depth of his mind, peeking into his brain to see the memory through a thin veil. I love how everyone can apply and understand his work, drawing from their own connection with a space to fully feel present in his art. He has perfected the shared experience between the artist and the art, creating an exchange of emotions and creative recreation. It’s not so much that I wish I’d done this, but rather an admiration for how he can evoke a certain feeling through art.

4. What/who are your key creative influences?

Jessica Walsh was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to RISD. I saw how she was able to let her creativity shine, balancing experimentation with her branding work.

5. Who is/was the most important person in your life (not including parents, spouse/partner, or children)?

My art teachers in high school Bill Hardy and Sarah Macwright. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. They let me explore my love for art and pushed me to grow.

6. What career did you think you'd have when you were a kid?

I wanted to be a fashion designer and gave that dream a shot during my freshman year of university. We had a semester called winter session, where you could enrol in any available course from any major. Most freshmen used that time to explore different major options, and so I decided on a Fashion Design 101 course. I stayed up almost every night during those three weeks. Through that time, I thought the vein behind my eye might pop from trying to accurately measure ⅛ inch hems for a vest I was making out of leather, jeans, and PVC. How does that even work, you might ask? No clue. I ended up letting that dream rest.

7. Do you work best under pressure, or when things are calm?

I work best under some sort of pressure. I feel like all creatives have a perfectionist side to them. So sometimes, I need outside pressure and a time limit to force me to hone it down. It pushes my creativity and makes me think more practically about what I can do within the allotted time.

8. What advice would you give to 10-year-old you, if you could?

I don’t think my 10-year-old self would even recognise me today. She was a scared little girl who was afraid of everything, even sitting alone during a meal. Now though, having a coffee alone on a Sunday afternoon with chill R&B blasting in my headphones could be considered my safe haven. I would tell her, “Sometimes you are scared, but you just gotta do it anyway. You’re just a tiny speck in the universe it’s not that deep. So don’t be scared, just do it.”

9. Do you have a nickname? How did you get it?

My real name is Phan Hoàng Thái Phương , or Phương. But even if I introduce myself as ‘Phương’, everyone calls me Kelly instead—even Vietnamese friends or people in Vietnam. Kelly is an English name I chose when I was in middle school that has stuck with me ever since.

At the time, everyone in Vietnam was choosing an English name for Facebook. I have an older cousin that I used to follow around all the time. Her nickname in Vietnamese is ‘Kin’ which is relatively unique in Vietnam. She wanted to find a name with a ‘K’ to keep that originality. Little did she know that a little copycat would blatantly steal her name! I thought it was cool, and so one day I shamelessly made it my Facebook name, just like that. We laughed about it as we grew older, after I profusely apologised. She now goes by Kylie.

10. What makes you really happy?

Music can change my mood and turn a mediocre day into a great one, just in the span of a chorus. My favourite genre is chill hip-hop R&B, but I mostly listen to music that makes me feel warm. My body physically feels the excitement of a song that hits just right. Then I refuse to listen to anything else for the rest of the week, until I get sick of that song.

11. Early riser or night owl?

Night owl with a hint of insomnia and a 2 am adrenaline rush.