Việt Nam: OVERVIEW: Applied art

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OVERVIEW:

Introduction

Traditional crafts

Modern and contemporary art

'Truyền thần' portrait art

International exchange

Applied art

Vietnamese applied arts first developed during the French colonial era, when the task of designing the currencies and stamps for the Indochinese territories was entrusted to locally-trained designers. From the 1950s the proliferation of propaganda posters in the north and of commercial packaging and advertising materials in the south created an increasing demand for trained graphic designers, and in response, both the Hà Nội College of Industrial Fine Art (now the Hà Nội University of Industrial Fine Art) and the Đồng Nai College of Decorative Arts respectively launched specialised courses in applied art and design.

As soon as Việt Nam began to engage with the market economy many international advertising agencies set up offices here, but since they were not allowed to work for Vietnamese clients, local design companies quickly stepped in to fill the gap. Notwithstanding this fact, very few Vietnamese companies maintain a budget for the development of corporate or product identity, most preferring to undertake their design work in house. Happily this situation is now slowly beginning to change, with several major companies now setting the trend by engaging professional local designers to develop their corporate image.

At the time of writing Việt Nam’s design industry comprises over 1,000 design companies and studios with more than 2,000 artists and designers, many of them young and highly creative. However, the country’s applied art training courses are struggling to keep pace with the increasingly specialised demands of the fast-growing profession and many of today’s most talented Vietnamese designers either trained overseas or learned their skills on the job.

Whilst Việt Nam is still a relative newcomer to corporate design, Vietnamese applied artists have long made a name for themselves in other areas, such as designing money (Nguyễn Văn Khanh, Trịnh Quốc Thụ, Ðỗ Việt Tuấn, Trần Ngọc Uyển, Lê Toàn, Trần Huy Khánh, Nguyễn Thị Sâm, Hoàng Thúy Liệu, Ðỗ Lệnh Tuấn, Ðinh Lực, Trần Thế Vinh, Võ Lương Nhi, Vũ Kim Liên, Tô Minh Trang and Nguyễn Du) or postage stamps (Lê Thanh Ðức, Trần Lương, Trần Hay, Văn Sáng and Hoàng Hữu).

Also of note is the work of interior and exterior decorators Lê Thanh, Ngô Bá Quang, Hoàng Hùng Dũng, Ðặng Ðình Dũng and Bùi Văn Khoa; museum designers Hồ Thọ and Nguyễn Khắc Thịnh; and stage decorators Ðào Ðức, Nguyễn Trịnh Thái, Phạm Quang Vĩnh, Nguyễn Ngọc Tuân, Lương Ðống, Phùng Huy Bính, Bùi Huy Hiếu, Doãn Châu, Lê Huy Quang, Dân Quốc and Hà Quang Sơn.

However, it is in two specific areas of applied art – propaganda poster design and fashion design – that Vietnamese applied artists have attracted the most attention overseas.

Use the navigation bar on the left to read more about Vietnamese applied arts or make direct contact with organisations and individuals working in this sector through our KEY CONTACTS database.

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