Meet Chia-Yu Hsu: Graphic Designer & Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chia-Yu Hsu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chia-Yu, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
It’s the gateway drug to success! For me, it’s been my source of motivation, after-college education, and career compass. Risk in a project means that there are things to learn and often times saying “yes” to a project you’re not 100% about will result in some new skills once the final deliverables are in their inbox. Risk and my high tolerance of it, both fortunately and unfortunately, have contributed to most of my mild success since it allowed me to jump in various positions early on in my career to help build a large, stable toolkit to build off of. That being said, all risky/mentally-consuming projects needs to be properly weighed against your quality of life since it can get easily out of hand and cause lasting depression, burnout, and stress-induced physical illnesses to name a few.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m a utilitarian designer. I try to separate my expressionistic needs from my design work since I’m a firm believer that designers aren’t artists but more translators for thoughts/concepts/products into visual mediums. I pride myself on not being a “high concept” thinker since blue-sky, abstract visuals often leaves WAY too much to interpretation and therefore inaccurate, undesirable results. Like most other independent designers, I got to where I am through years of trial and error; mostly on the client-management side of things since work can range from a gift card to an entire corporate brand + ad campaign. Hard-earned lessons like: making sure the agreement is clear so the client doesn’t request a million changes, not saying “yes!” to everything, and making sure that the risk you take isn’t too great and become the straw that causes you to have a panic attack. It’ll always be a learning curve since creating for someone means building a trusting, stable relationship. And on that front, I feel like I’ve been on easy street the past few years because I know/set my limits while allowing my clients enough comfortable wiggle room (aka tweaks and changes) to see the project through to a happy conclusion. As for my brand/story, I’m just your friendly neighborhood designer. If COVID wasn’t a thing I’d invite you out for coffee to talk shop and get equally enthused about whatever you’re working on so we can collaborate and make your next design/brand/ad something you can be proud of. Safety first so virtual meets will have to do for now but I’m all about getting to know my clients since that’s the best way to understand the project and each other. Bonus points if your project is humanitarian; while the money is nice, for-profit corporate gigs are lame and soul-sucking.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Buford highway has gems in gems next to more gems in terms of food. Atlanta is a fantastically underrated foodie city and more people need to know where to find the best chow. And if the pandemic wasn’t a limitation, I’d drag them through downtown Decatur, new restaurants up Peachtree Industrial, open mic jazz at Elliott St Pub, and of course go for an all-day, bar-hopping, sculpture-viewing, cycling adventure off of the Beltline. Spending sunsets at rooftop bars around downtown or midtown are also wonderful ways to round out a visit to Atlanta. Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My parents. Now that I’m roughly the same age as they were when we immigrated from Taiwan, I really can appreciate how incredibly insane it must have been to uproot a young family of five and move to a across the world to start a business with little to no knowledge of the language. Absolutely mind-blowing.

Website: cyhdesigns.com
Instagram: @cyhgram
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chia-yu-hsu-354aa314/