Art Director Cman Wong talks passion for design and working with world’s biggest brands

It’s funny to Cman Wong that she is now a successful Art Director. For many years, she never considered it when thinking about her future. Now, she wakes up every day and loves what she does. She finds mediocrity an impossible standard to live by, and she always aims for greatness, something she achieves day in and day out as an Art Director.

“I’ve loved art and design for as long as I can remember. I was drawn into the look of things naturally. My parents then sent me to learn drawing. My basic concept of composition and visualization skills started to develop from there. It was a good training to have diligent effort, so my hands could be able to do things up to my taste and ambition,” she said.

Beginning her career as a graphic designer, Cman started working with large companies right away. During her time at the agency Sillything, she began doing layout for their magazine Obscura, a multinational publication that promoted brands like Chanel, Givenchy, and more. Cman’s work with the magazine prompted several more companies to buy into the magazine for promotional purposes.

“Most of my art direction is based on the client. I’m pretty versatile around different style because of my agency background. I came across a lot of different clients who all wanted different things. That could be pretty challenging to some people. For me, it’s kind of fun and interesting like exercising different muscles and always trying something new,” she said.

In 2013, also with Sillything, Cman worked with none other than Marvel Studios to help promote the global blockbuster Iron Man 3 in Hong Kong. The display, a giant Iron Man suit, was set up in the center of Causeway Bay, a shopping mall in Hong Kong, and soon became a popular tourist attraction. In addition to the life-size Hall of Armor and statues of Iron Man there was also the "Become Iron Man" Virtual Experience. It used body-mapping motion sensor technology, which was the first time ever in Hong Kong and was also one of the highlights of this astounding exhibition. Fans could transform into their superhero idol by suiting up in the Mark XLII armor from Marvel’s Iron Man 3 on a 65” LED screen. Cman was the lead graphic designer on the product, developing the set design and mass advertising promotion for the event, helping boost the film’s box office revenue in Hong Kong.

Cman now currently works as a Creative Services Manager in Hong Kong at a global industry leading fashion brand. She also aims to constantly explore her passion for art. She recently created the exhibit My Breathing Space, a photographic series depicting the soothing instances that she has come across in her journeys and travels. It seems to reveal a pure, calm and almost surreal silence of her compositions. Apart from the breathtaking aesthetics, she has a much stronger reason to create and share with the viewers.

With her background in art direction and graphic design for industry-leading clients and companies, these images become her personal retreat. "I'm restless and care so much about what I do at work, which left me with limited energy on my free time. Capturing these images separated me away from my job, my commercial aesthetics to my own aesthetics," she said.

Viewers could feel the freedom in her poetic way of seeing things. In creating such a visual masterpiece, Cman feels like that child growing up in Hong Kong that loved to draw. Her work of art direction every day reminds her of this, and she can’t imagine herself doing anything else.