Extremely honored to be awarded these Gold Medals from the Society of Illustrators NY this year.
Check out the winning pieces and my blog post here (Sorry I haven’t been able to write about it earlier.)
Mayfly
Victo Ngai
A full page illustration is for the last New Yorker fiction “Mayfly” by Kevin Canty.
Big thanks to AD Jordan Awan who suggested that we could create an edge to edge butterfly piece focusing on the first paragraph of the story: “Driving across the Utah desert on I‐70, James hit a butterfly with his car. Then another. Then a shower of them, hitting the windshield like hail, wings trapped in the wipers, orange and black. The noise of them, muted but steady, woke Molly from her trance, and she looked out the windshield, at broken wings and yellow smears.”
You can read the process post on my drawger.
Sundance A-Z Book
Victo Ngai
This illo is for the Sundance Film Festival A to Z Book designed by Todd Oldham Studios. This book was specially made for this year’s festival, all the profit from the sales will be donated to the Sundance Film Festival.
Each alphabet comes with a list of movies, directors and actors that begin with the letter. I picked C because “Cinema Paradiso” is one of my all time favorites (If you haven’t seen it, you should!!).
What I didn’t realized was that we had to incorporate ALL the names and films into the illustration. This was tricky as the movies and people were vastly different and I didn’t want to make a collage-y image. In the end I just cheated- making Cinema Paradiso the star and sheepishly sneaking other elements into the picture…
My scratched iphone lens takes crappy photos but the book is quite nice in person- lovely design and quality printing on thick cardboard stock. I am very happy with how it turned out!
Thank you AD Greg Kozatek!
Treacherous Water
Victo Ngai
This wintery image is for the PLANSPONSOR Dec issue. What is the article about? I don’t really know.
I have been working with SooJin for more than 3 years now and have lost count of how many jobs we have collaborated together. It’s safe to say 90% of the time I am not completely sure what the articles were about, even after reading them.
PLANSPONSOR is a very specialized trade publication for pension fund CIOs. Even though it is in English, it makes as much sense to me as elfish. Luckily SooJin would translate the assignments into simple phrases like “derisk”, “the new standard”, ” overloaded with information”, “tension between choosing”.etc. This time it was ” going seprately and individually in harsh environment”.
I really enjoy this process of coming up visuals and metaphors base off a single abstract phrase. I may never understand the articles I illustrate for, but I sure have my own eleborate tales behind each of those images. (I would rather remember this piece as a red fox watching a majestic whale drifting apart into tiny fishes in an icy ocean than “securities lending disclosures” anyway. )
Thank you SooJin for making commissioned work feel like personal fun.
And I really hope it will snow this year.
Radio interview with Sam Weber
Victo Ngai
Very very honored to be on Sam Weber’s radio podcast YDMN this week! Thank you Sam for having me and providing the alcohol before the recording, which makes everything so much easier.
Check it out guys, I have been told I have a funny accent.
Your Dreams My Nightmares Episode 037. An interview with Victo Ngai. Music by Dumbo Gets Mad via freemusicarchive.org
You can download the episode here or subscribe to the show via iTunes.
Music
Prints Give Away Winners!
Congratulation to the 5 lucky winners picked to receive one free print each! To make sure the process is completely just and fair, I invited my good friend and talented illustrator Johnny Dombrowski to be the lucky draw guest ( Be sure to follow him on tumble).
And… here are the winners!
1.eterealshocks
http://eterealshocks.tumblr.com/
2.dreamfulartist
http://dreamfulartist.tumblr.com/
3.beemeep
http://beepmeep.tumblr.com/
4. findsomelight
http://findsomelight.tumblr.com/
5. lifefile
http://lilefile.tumblr.com/
Winners, please send me your top 3 choices, just in case your first choice isn’t available, and mailing address to victo@victo-ngai.com . You can choose from the prints here - http://victo-ngai.mysupadupa.com/
Thank you everyone for participating! Happy holidays!
The Day
Victo Ngai
These 2 pieces are for the Liberty magazine Nov/Dec 2012 issue. The feature story is about a proposed legislation in Europe requiring observance of Sunday as the day of rest. You can read the story here.
The growing European Sunday Alliance is made up of powerful lablor unions, , so-called civil society organizations and of course the Orthodox churches and many Lutheran churches. They believe a compulsary rest day is neccesary for the well being of Europeans’ health, family and society. Their reasoning for picking “Sunday” as “the Day” is that most people already have day off on Sundays.
The opposition of the movement argues that having Sunday as the Rest day would do more harm than good as it’s a violation of ”Seperation of State and Church” and “democratic choices” . ” Seventh-day Aventists…worship on Saturdays. Muslims, meanwhile, worship on Friday, and Islamhas become a sizable and powerful minority throughout Europe in recent times.”
The editor proposed a simple yet effective direction for the illustrations: a pleasant sun over a peaceful, rural European landscape for the cover; a threatening sun with the all seeing eye over the same landscape for the interior.
As you can see from the sketches - I had a pretty clear idea of how I want to approach the cover but was toying with different possibilities with the interior. What if the all-seeing eye sun is casting a shadow over the landscape instead of brightening the day? Or appearing among stormy clouds? Or a laser beam shooting out from the eye and burning the houses (what was I thinking?)…
Great thanks to AD Bryan!
Photos of “Jack and Queen” and ” Life of Pi”
Victo Ngai
Photos of 2 new prints are up at my store!
Only 12 10% off coupon code ( XMAS2012) left!
1 day left to win a free print, participation information here-
http://victongai.tumblr.com/post/37121423627/another-chance-to-win-a-free-print-courtesy-of
http://victongai.tumblr.com/post/36745792013/new-prints-and-holiday-sale-victo-ngai-just-in
Another chance to win a free print! Courtesy of Zach at Supersonicelectronic!
Victo Ngai Print Give Away!
The always phenomenal Victo Ngai just released new Limited Edition and Open Edition prints on her store. But Supersonic Electronic is giving one grand prize winner and two runner ups a chance to win some of her beautiful work. The grand prize winner will receive a signed, limited edition print of “Sweet Dreams.” Two runner ups will receive a signed, open edition of “Koi Dance.”
How To Enter:
- Reblog this post on Tumblr. (Be sure and follow Victo on Tumblr)
- Follow Supersonic and Victo Ngai on Twitter and Tweet the following (Click to Tweet it): ”I just entered @supersonicart’s @victongai Print Give Away! Details on supersonicelectronic.com #victongai”
That’s it! Enter both ways for a better chance at winning. Winners will be announced via Twitter on Thursday, December 6th at 12:00pm PST. Good luck! And don’t forget to check out Victo Ngai’s amazing portfolio.
New Prints and Holiday Sale!
Victo Ngai
Just in time for X’mas! New limited and open edition Giclee prints are available now at my store.
Selected items are on sale. Enter code XMAS2012 (50 limited) at check out for 10% off entire purchase.
Reblog this to win a free print - 5 winners will be chosen at random and announced on Fri Dec 7 2012 12:00pm EST.
All limited editions are one-run only, get it before they are sold out!
