Victo Ngai

Forbes 30 Under (Art and Style) honoree and two times Society of Illustrators NY Gold Medalist Victo Ngai is a NY based illustrator from Hong Kong, graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. "Victo" is not a boy nor a typo, but a nickname derived from Victoria - a leftover from the British colonization. Victo creates art for newspaper and magazines such as the New York Times and the New Yorker; makes books for publishers such as the Folio Society, Abrams and Tor Forge; and works on advertisement campaigns with companies like the McDonald's, IMAX, MTA Art for Transit (New York subway), Lufthansa Airline and General Electric.

[victongai]

Migration to Instagram

Victo Ngai

Hi guys, it’s been an amazing journey sharing my art and life with you on tumblr for the last 7 years. However it has become more and more difficult to balance social media and work. 

In order to streamline postings to allow more quality drawing time, I am migrating to Instagram under the handle @victongai. I find it much easier to interact with followers and answer questions there, hope you will be there too!

XO

Victo

[victongai]

Had the most magical night at the 25th @spectrumfantasticart award ceremony this past Saturday! Its such an incredible honor to receive 4 nominations and a Gold Medal. Congrats to all the winners, your work motivates me and keep my ego in check. Thank you juries for you crazy love. Thank you @johnfleskes, Cathy and Arnie Fenner for this beautiful community that is Spectrum. Thank you AD Nisi Shawl and author Christopher Caldwell Kelly for your trust in the process of creating “Serving Fish”! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

[victongai]

Mixc World Spring Festival

Victo Ngai

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! 

This is the third and last of the Mixc World collaboration trilogy. The main concept behind the Mixc World Spring Festival image is the celebration of a new spring and the sharing of good fortune. 

There has been a long tradition of emphasizing "Luck" when it comes to Chinese Spring Festival, from new year’s greetings to propitious decorations, to lucky dishes, these auspicious gestures are believed to bring about good fortune in the year to come. In this image, we see many gathered in a field of lucky flowers such as peonies, narcissus and peach blossoms, while Mixc Elephant is showering everyone with fireworks, gems tones and stars, representing luck, fortune and knowledge respectively.

 As 2018 is the year of the dog, dogs are well represented in this image. In fact there are a total of 18 of them, as "eighteen" sounds like "sure fortune" in Chinese. Can you find them all?

Many thanks to my creative team at KAI. 

[victongai]

Being judgmental all day today at @communicationarts 🧐 #competition #illustration #communicationarts (at Menlo Park, California)

[victongai]

Shimmer shimmer shimmer 🌟 @w.w.norton really brought my cover to life with this metallic silvery rubbery paper! #Repost @neilhimself with @get_repost ・・・ Unboxing my first advance copy of Norse Mythology in US paperback. It's beautiful.

[victongai]

Norse Mythology

Victo Ngai

I am so excited to reveal the cover for @neil-gaiman ’s Norse Mythology paperback, hitting the shelves on March 6th, 2018. I have always been a fan of mythologies and fantasies as well as Neil’s books and lectures, so unsurprisingly I devoured this book when it first came out in hard cover format, adorned by Sam Weber’s beautiful cover. It was a beautiful surprise when the paperback cover fell into my lap, and I was able ready to jump right in without needing to read the manuscript. 

Water and stars have always feel timeless to me, I imagine Mjölnir being washed up on a shore of stars. How did the hammer end up in the sea? Maybe the not-the-brightest Thor has lost it, yet again, or maybe the gods and human have been long gone. Either way, the mythologies endure, and the cycle continues. Another reason behind the water concept is that the Norse world is flooded both when it is created and destroyed. What fascinates me the most about Norse Mythology is its cyclic perspective on time, which Neil has elegantly written in this book’s introduction: “Had Ragnarok happened yet? Was it still to happen? I did not know then. I am not certain now. It was the fact that the world and the story ends, and the way that it ends and is reborn, that made the gods and the frost giants and the rest of them tragic heroes, tragic villains. Tagnarok make the Norse world linger for me, seem strangely present and current, while others, better documented systems of belief felt as if they were part of the past, old things.” This image can be from any point of time in the world of Norse Mythologies. 

Personally I think a good illustration doesn’t just create a scene, it creates a believable mythology. The richer the story-telling details, the more believable the myths are. The decorations on Mjölnir are inspired by the world which the hammer defends: we have Midgard and Asgard in the middled, connected by the World tree are and the rainbow bridge, surrounded by the Midgard serpent. The world tree extends to the handle where we can find the dragon Nidhogg. The two circular symbols on the side are the sun and moon.

Many thanks to Neil Gaiman, AD Steve Attardo and W.W.Norton. 

[victongai]

Following the Great Wall

Victo Ngai

From the dusty desert of Gansu province to the rolling waves of the yellow sea, The Great Wall of China stretches across much of North China, it is the longest man-made structure in the world, if all pieces of the wall were added together, experts believe it would measure around 13, 171 miles ( 21,196 km).  The wall isn't just a wall- it has watchtowers, castles, and other fortifications with mesmerizing landscape and nature-life dotted in between. Unfold this pull-out wall frieze and travel along the Great Wall of China. You can get a copy anywhere books are sold in American or online at https://tinyurl.com/yawbak2z

[victongai]

A Very Merry X’Mas from Mixc and Me!

Victo Ngai

The inspiration behind this Christmas image was “gifting” as it has long been the heart of the holiday. The title of this piece is "Mixc Christmas Workshop", a reference to the Santa's workshop, we see Mixc Elephant giving the Little Girl a behind-the-scenes VIP tour. Instead of depicting the "exchanges",  I want to focus on the "making" of gifts, as the best gifts are those which much thoughts, love, and care have been put into. I believe a great gift is also one that's tailored specifically to the recipient,  therefore the tour the Little Girl is an exclusive one. If you look closer, you will see that she's the only human in this image. Perhaps somewhere in a parallel dimension, another Mixc Elephant avatar is giving another kid a bespoke tour. Contrasting the launch image of Mixc World, which showcases a community of shared happiness and festivities, this one is about the intimate individual experience and relationship with the space.

To capture the sense of wonder and magic of Christmas , I worked with the idea of "infinite possibilities", represented by the box within the box within the box and the multiple Mixc Elephants and Little Girls.

Elephant and little girl is main characters in the opening image of Mixc World, It is my intention to create a series of narration with reoccurring characters through the 3 consecutive Mixc World campaigns, I hope Mixc Elephant and Little Girl will become familiar friends with the audiences, and that audiences can partake in this visual journey.  Besides the familiar faces, many themes and ideas are carried over to this image from the launch image. For examples, the stripe motif is present here to sustain the impression of a continuous world.The idea of “all is in one, one is in all, infinite possibilities” lives on, with the Mixc Elephant being both outside and boxes and inside the boxes.  And of course, the sense of curiosity, wonder and fun set the tone for both of these pieces.

I left 13 elephants as Easter egg of the image in the Mixc World Launch  image. This time, rather than hiding elephant motifs in the image, I have given nods to some beloved Christmas icons, such as the Nutcracker, the Radio City Rockettes, the Light of Bethlehem, The Polar Express, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Santa’s helpers, Christmas’ candles at the window, peppermint cane.​​​​​​​

[victongai]

Lit too Bright Victo Ngai Cover illustration for Lit Too Bright by. “For fans of literary classics such as The Catcher in the Rye comes a stirring new thought-provoking novel from debut author Sam Miller about a loss shrouded in mystery with twists and turns down every railway.” Art Directed and type designed by David Curtis.

[victongai]

Society of Illustrator NY Selected

Victo Ngai

Honored to have six pieces in this year's @soi128 Annual Competition 😊 

Many thanks to juries, my wonderful clients, ADs and agent @@morgangaynininc . Here are the works included- 

⭐️ CRLand "Mixc World Launch

⭐️ @johnniewalker #bluelabel"Pioneering City #HongKong Special Edition"

⭐️ FSI "Serving Fish" 

⭐️ @tordotcompub"Waiting on a Bright Moon"

⭐️ Private Commission "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

⭐️ @apple "Lucky Rooster #CNYcelebration"

(On a side note, pretty happy to see 2 out of 6 pieces are inspired from story of queer love.)

[victongai]

Q60 Final Animation

Q60 Animation Mock Up Key Frames

Q60 Concept Sketch

Q60 Line Art

Q60 Final Illustration

QX30 Concept Sketch

QX30 Line Art

QX30 Final Illustration

Infiniti and Beyond

Victo Ngai

I am so excited to share with you this recent collaboration with INFINITI. There are a few qualities that captivated me and eventually inspired the art pieces: elegant, powerful, daring, and forward while redefining boundaries and possibilities. The main stories of the INFINITI QX30 and Q60 are both about blazing new trails where there were none, as a way of saying that INFINITI and its drivers are trendsetters instead of followers. The QX30 being a crossover, I have placed it in a rugged outdoor scene, where mountains move apart to let it pass and show off its power and durability. The Q60, which feels more metropolitan to me, is placed in a busy city where roads are always packed, but our creative and stylish vehicle manages to defy gravity and create its own path. The infinitely receding surface of the skyscraper is meant to echo the "open road" concept which inspired the logo of INFINITI. 

[sbuzelli]

PLANSPONSOR October 2017 illustrations part 1

[victongai]

Always so much fun and among good company when you work for @sbuzelli ! A cover for the latest Plansponsor about moving money! Channeling my inner Botero with the chubby acrobats.

[victongai]

Dan Yuan Ren Chang Jiu

Victo Ngai

但願人長久，千里共嬋娟。Art for a bittersweet space-war girls love short story by JY Yang.

Many thanks to Tor.com and AD Irene Gallo, always a pleasure.  

[victongai]

Mixc World

Victo Ngai

I was commissioned by Mixc World, a shopping center in Shenzhen China. to create a billboard image celebrating their launch in September 2017.

 Mixc World is a community comprises of a dozen buildings, hundreds of shops and restaurants and public areas including art installations and historical sites. The main inspiration of this piece was drawn from the Chinese name of Mixc World - “萬象天地”, which has the meaning of “a place with everything and all things” but can also be literally translated to “Elephant World”. 

 With this image, I want to create a whimsical carnival-like world that is filled with fun and curiosity. I like to sneak in visual signs for the viewers to figure out, clues which would allow people to connect dots into line, whether consciously or subconsciously. For example, we see the Cosmic Elephant presents a flower to the little girl. The interior of the flower corresponds to the cosmic pattern on the elephant, while the external stripes related to the stripes on the elephant, the girl’s skirt, the building, the clouds in the sky, and so on. We get a sense that everything is related and all is one, the flower being gifted opens up the possibility of the entire world, similar to the experience Mixc World is offering to its shoppers.

[victongai]

Victo Ngai X Johnnie Walker Blue Label Special Edition

Here’s an exciting project commissioned by Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Available exclusively in Hong Kong from September 2017, the limited-edition 70cl bottles features a Cantonese opera performer adorned with iconic Hong Kong symbols including neon lights, colonial architecture and skyscrapers, celebrating Hong Kong’s unique Eastern and Western influences through marrying the artistry and craftsmanship of the coveted blend and the illustration.

This project, which deals with a three-dimensional object, provided an interesting challenge the images needs to work well as a flat image but also as a three-plane tryptic, and elements needed to be well-placed and not awkwardly cut off around the edges when wrapped around the next plane.

While the blue hues show off the natural golden color of the whiskey, we wanted the image to look good on its own too, so people will keep the empty bottles and display them as standalone art pieces.

Many thanks to my creative team at LOVE Creatives, everyone at MHDHK and PRIME Asia for the fabulous launch party and Johnnie Walker for such a beautifully crafted product. 

[victongai]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Victo Ngai

Fan silkscreen poster of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of the most beautiful heartache by one of my favorite directors. Printed by the great Lady Lazarus at Houston Texas. 

[victongai]

Dazzle Ship

Victo Ngai

I am very excited to share with you my debut children’s book, Dazzle Ship, authored by Chris Barton and published by Lerner Book. 

Dazzle Ship is the story behind the thousands of war ships painted with bold colors and crazy patterns during WW1. 

Sounds interesting? You can get a copy anywhere books are sold in American or online here. 

Big thanks to Chris Barton, AD Danielle Carnito and Editor Carol Hinz for getting me acquainted with this colorful piece of history and being so wonderful to work with! 

Video and photos by Munira, Music by Bensound.