"There's a huge gap between people who understand fashion and people who understand 3D. I want to close that gap and inspire the next generation." - Stephy Fung

A candid conversation with digital fashion artist Stephy Fung about her journey from graphic design to pioneering digital fashion. She discusses navigating her British-Chinese identity, the evolution of digital art through the NFT boom, and her mission to educate others in the digital fashion space. Stephy shares insights on building a personal brand in the digital age while maintaining authenticity, and explains how her background in graphic design laid the foundation for her success in 3D and digital fashion. Through her story, we see how embracing one's unique cultural perspective can lead to distinctive creative work that resonates globally.

Key Takeaways:

• Cultural identity can be a powerful source of creative inspiration and differentiation
• Traditional design skills remain valuable even when transitioning to emerging creative fields
• Personal branding is most effective when it comes from an authentic place
• Consistency and resilience are crucial for building a following on social media
• The future of digital fashion spans multiple platforms - from metaverse to augmented reality
• Teaching and giving back to the creative community can be as rewarding as creating
• The intersection of gaming, fashion, and technology presents exciting opportunities
• It's important to adapt to new technologies while staying true to your core creative vision
• Building a personal brand requires showing both the work and the person behind it
• Success in emerging creative fields requires continuous learning and experimentation

Mindful Creative: How to understand and deal with the highs and lows of creative life, career and business

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Steffi Fung: You will get people who we'll write horrible comments because it's the internet. But as your work is good, believe in what you do. You just got to be consistent and keep going at it because the more videos you post, the more you learn from it, you can see what works.

You can see what doesn't work. And if you do as a creative, want to become a voice in this space or want to grow your personal brand, you need to just consistently put yourself out ​

USBPre2-2: Welcome to mindful creative podcast. A show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Ryan Martin edge and creativity changed my life by also nearly killed me. In the season inspired by my book of the same title. I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures [00:01:00] in a creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. How they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in a 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. 

Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? 

Radim Malinic: My guest today is a leading British Chinese digital fashion artist, educator and content creator based in London. She seamlessly merges urban streetwear with traditional Chinese elements, which bring a fresh perspective of her duality of culture. In our conversation, she shares insights on building a personal brand in a digital age authenticity.

[00:02:00] She explains how her 3D and digital fashion. Through her story, we see how embracing one's unique cultural perspective can lead to distinctive creative work that resonates globally. It's my pleasure to introduce Steffi Fung. Hi, Steffi. it's my pleasure to have you on the show today. how are you doing?

Steffi Fung: I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me, Radim.

Radim Malinic: I'm intrigued to have a conversation about your work, about your story, about what you do, because we met at the off festival. I watched your presentation and it gave me a lot of insight. gave me a lot of information and I was very interested with your story. So for those who have never heard of you, can you please introduce yourself?

Steffi Fung: Sure thing. So I'm Steffi Fung. I'm a digital fashion artist. I also do content creation, and I also educate on the [00:03:00] side. And what I predominantly do is create digital fashion outfits that may live in a metaverse, or through augmented reality, or through gaming skins, and could even turn into physical fashion clothing as well.

Radim Malinic: a lot of things that can already unpick from your answer, but I think that. the demographic of this podcast is people who come through traditional graphic design, art direction, advertising, and when we talk about digital fashion and the metaverse, most of these people, a little bit, including me, go a bit like Metaverse?

Digital fashion? I think the world is changing. So let's talk about your background in graphic design and actually how you get to do this, 

Steffi Fung: Yeah, so that is what I studied in university. I studied graphic design. I really enjoyed the design aspect of it. And I think to this day, graphic design has still really influenced the way that I design my pieces, actually. But the one thing that I didn't like about graphic design was it being so static.

I wasn't really into editorial. I wasn't really into making [00:04:00] posters. I appreciated it, but it just wasn't my thing. The thing that really excited me was when I could see graphic design move. and animate. And so I think during that time it was called motion graphics. And as soon as I saw that, even just with 2D animations and After Effects, that really excited me because when I was a kid, I loved watching animations.

I loved the storytelling aspects. And so when I saw it move, I thought, you know what, I'm going to learn this. Instead of graphic design, I'm just going to make everything move. And that was super exciting for me. And so I went down the YouTube rabbit hole because I'm a self taught designer. when it comes to all of my technical skills. And I think I fell upon a 3D motion design video, probably by Grayscale Guerrilla or from iDesign. I saw something that they made and I remember that video. It was a sphere that was just turning and it had this sort of like water wavy movement to it, which I've never seen before. And so when I saw that, I thought, [00:05:00] okay, instead of everything being 2D, I'm going to turn it into 3D and let's see what happens. And so that's how I fell into 3D motion design. I actually graduated as a graphic designer, but worked straight away as a 2D and 3D motion designer in industry. And I loved it. I thought I was going to work in branding and advertising. That's where I thought I was going to be. But then the pandemic happened and I think it was the year of 2019. I was in this community and I'm still in it right now, it's called DigiGirl. They are a community that is full of 3D or XR designers that are catered towards woman led or LGBTQ plus designers. Which, I joined it because I wanted to feel represented, I wanted to relate to more designers that felt more like me. And they were commissioned by Selfridges, a luxury department store in London. They were commissioned to digitalize or digitize a collection, [00:06:00] a physical collection, and bring it into 3D into a digital world. At that point, I had no idea what digital fashion was. I just knew how to do camera animation. I knew how to texture, I knew how to light, and I thought, you know what?

I just freshly graduated. I need something to do. And this sounds fun. and of course it was paid as well. So that was great. And so with this, I saw people working in a program called Marvelous Designer or Clo3D. And that was where I was fully introduced into this digital clothing or digital fashion business. Because prior to that, I had absolutely no clue that it existed. The most that I saw was were from digital fashion during that time was probably from advertising. You would see these bodiless clothing dancing. And I think there was an advert, I'm not quite sure if it was Apple or not, but there was some advert that I saw prior to that, that this reminded me of.

So when I saw these digital fashion [00:07:00] designers creating clothing from nothing to something in 3D, I thought, you know what, that's actually not so different from what I do day to day. I create 3D and all digital fashion is really creating clothing, but in 3D. And so after that project, I let it simmer for a bit.

I didn't go straight into digital fashion. It was actually 2020 when everyone had to stay at home. We were all in lockdown that I had so much free time on my hands. And I think a part of me always wanted to have create my own clothes. I had this enthusiasm of fashion and I think. That came from my mum, actually, because she's such a fashionista.

She's always been so fashionable, buying fashion magazines, but I've never really. I suppose I've never really was into fashion as a hardcore fan. I think for me, it was more of a subconscious thing that I wanted to create clothing that represented me as a British Chinese designer. And so during 2020 had all this time to myself.

I [00:08:00] didn't need to commute three hours a day to London, to the office. And so those three hours were very precious to me because it meant I had time to experiment. I had time to learn. I had time to make mistakes and something that was completely new to me. And I actually posted it all on social media. My first digital fashion piece, you can scroll down on my Instagram.

It is terrible, but I posted it, just letting everyone know that I wanted to learn something new. And actually it was from that post that I just kept on, I think every single week I kept making a new outfit and I slowly improved over the year. So that was how I pretty much got started in digital fashion.

Radim Malinic: So I'm going to go a few steps back and I was going to go. And I'll ask you the reason why you've started, why you graduated from graphic design and what led you into graphic design. But I want to now actually go a few steps back because you mentioned your mom and she'd been a fashionista.

And obviously you were not necessarily fascinated by fashion back then, but obviously you had an [00:09:00] influence from your mom. So as you mentioned, you're a British Asian, born in London. What was the mixture of your influences and what did your world look like as a, young child and a teenager like what we should do because we live in this incredible mecca of influencers.

How did it all work the point where you decided I'm gonna study graphic design?

Steffi Fung: Yeah, one thing I appreciate living in London is the diversity of people, and I think that's a privilege, if I'm honest, be surrounded by so many different people of different ethnicities. And so one thing that living in the UK has taught me is that, you need to accept who you are and where you come from. And so as a British Chinese kid, I've always had this sort of identity crisis of being smack bang in the middle. I think I would describe myself as a chameleon, where I could assimilate to British culture because of course I've been here my whole life. But then my Family's background is from China, and so we eat Chinese food, we listen to Chinese music, we [00:10:00] watch Chinese drama. there's a lot of things that we do that, of course, bring the heritage back to our family even though we live in the UK. And so I feel as a kid that's born in this country that comes from two cultures, I can really understand both. But then I also feel at the same time I don't belong to either, I'm not fully British and I'm not fully Chinese.

Because if I were to go to China, I do feel the difference. So it's always this dilemma, I would say, of fitting in, but also trying to accept yourself at the same time, which is why when it comes to my work, I always try to use it to express my identity and to show who I am as a person. But the way that I got into graphic design, As a kid, I used to draw a heck of a lot of drawings every single day. Actually, my parents saw that I was very talented from a young age. I was always drawing all the time and they would actually keep all my drawings. To this day, and I would look back and, for a while, I actually [00:11:00] could draw in perspective at 10 years old. This is actually not too bad. when I look back, I thought, okay, they actually saw there's a talent, they could see I was creative. And so they typically with Asian parents, they have the stereotype of you gotta work hard, first of all, you got to become a doctor, you got to become an accountant or something like an engineer. Thankfully, I was not really placed those stereotypes onto me, which I'm ever so thankful because I think with my parents, they saw that I was great. quite talented in the creative field. I like to draw. And I could see that as I went through secondary school age, I experimented with different mediums, whether it was paint, clay, or, when it comes to printing, like lino type, lino printing. Yes, that's what it's called. And so when I finally got to the point where I was choosing university, I told them, I want to try this foundation year. a foundation year where you've got one year to go to art [00:12:00] school, art university, you don't specialize in a topic or a subject, you just go and explore. And I'm very sad now to say that the government has got rid of foundation years in art universities, but for me that was the best year because That was exactly where I found myself in graphic design, and during that year, I actually learned a little bit of video editing in Premiere Pro, which actually has been very useful towards my career today as I create a lot of content. So I think with my parents, it was more so like a step by step thing that they saw that I really enjoyed what I did and I was good at what I did. So they just let me, they just let me flourish in that field.

Radim Malinic: You're not the first person to mend a foundation degree, and how much it actually did for them because It sounds like an amazing playground, sandbox, you know, likea place of endless toolkits that you can choose and do whatever you like and find yourself in what might appeal to you.

Because even though you've got [00:13:00] your almost direct line into graphic design, at that age, there's still some doubts. am I doing the right thing? Should I be doing this? And big up your parents for actually being more relaxed and going, you know what? You can have a career in graphic design.

You're talented because, again, on previous conversations on this point, we're like, parents don't want us to make the wrong choice, the wrong decision. Because when you drill down into, South Asian, Asian sort of upbringing and the culture, you It's just about a safe job. Like no one necessarily thinks that you need another doctor or lawyer.

It's you want to have a safe job so you can look after yourself. So I'm picking this, theory and philosophy on this podcast for quite a while. And I'm like, our parents want the best for us. Sometimes they don't want us to be disappointed, because that's their job.

Whereas. You need to be disappointed. You need to find yourself, through cul de sacs and dead ends and the kind of stuff to actually feel like, what does appeal to me? What do I want to do? So yeah, I'm happy that that's what happened for you because sometimes you have people who have to [00:14:00] backtrack on this.

Like they are not necessarily always allowed. And sometimes they make, 15, 20 years to get to the point where they potentially wanted to be at 18 or 19. So you mentioned, Having a bit of an identity crisis from being from, one foot in the British culture, one foot in the Chinese culture.

Did you ever have a wish that it was firmly one or the other? Did you ever have a sort of, wish I was just British, I wish I was Asian Chinese, did you ever have that in the past?

Steffi Fung: Oh, 100%. I think as a kid, you want to try and fit in and more so as a teenager as well. But I think as a primary school kid, I wanted to fit in more into the British culture because I actually have a Chinese name. which is, in my passport name, right? But I felt more comfortable to use my English name, Steffi, and I wanted to push that forward. I was almost embarrassed to use my F nickname. But now that I look at it, because now that I look back at it as an [00:15:00] adult, I find that so silly because my Chinese name is not difficult to pronounce either. So I think, as a kid, identity is such a huge thing. You want to fit in, especially at school.

I think during secondary school. It got a bit better because I found people who are quite similar to me. And I think at university. even better. I think my confidence grew as I got older, as you get older, you start to care less about what people think as well, but I think university is the best place where you start to also find more people that are similar to you, who's got similar interests as well, and also got diverse interests that you see that everyone's so different from different places, that also helps to open your world to know that Your identity in this world is okay.

You shouldn't be embarrassed or you shouldn't be ashamed of where you come from.

Radim Malinic: I think in a culture like, the British one. When you've got class systems and then you've got foreign systems, like everyone seems to be like in a bracket or in a category or something. 

[00:16:00] because I think we look for so much of acceptance through our work and and we look acceptance from outside sources, that sometimes it almost stifles and cripples our creativity because you're like, as you mentioned, you were a chameleon, I don't think necessarily you compromise your vision, but sometimes it's easy to hang on to certain style or certain things just to go, you that's the cool crowd.

Let's go with that because it's easy acceptance. So I liked that you mentioned that you joined this collective group. Did you go for the reason of diversity and a representation? So when we've abridged from your studies. Going into sort of having a bit more time, in the pandemic. That time of three hours a day that you don't have to commute, it changed everything, right?

Steffi Fung: Yeah, I think I was also at the point in my career where I felt creatively drained, actually. I was working full time at that time, and it did not fuel me [00:17:00] creatively. I did not feel satisfied as a creative, and sometimes I think with jobs, there are jobs that you need to do where it's not always creative, it's not always fun, sometimes you just need to get the job done.

So I think with my job at the time, I think I learnt as much as I could. through that experience, but it got to a point where things got repetitive and perhaps I wasn't learning as much or I wasn't enjoying it as much. So actually what I did during that time was express myself outside of work, find a creativity outside of work.

And that's what I tend to do actually. during that time I had nowhere else to go. I was at home and actually I had all this spare time that I just thought, you know what, since I'm not getting my creative fuel from my job right now, I'm just going to, outside of work, I'm just going to dedicate an hour or two just creating something of my own, which represented me or express my identity. So actually. Before I got into digital fashion, I was creating 3D [00:18:00] motion design, abstract 3D motion design, which followed trends, followed what was popular on social media, which is all good following the algorithm. You get likes, you get engagement. It didn't actually really represent me because it didn't feel like me as a person, as a creative, my identity. And so what I started to do was actually infuse a bit more of my Chinese culture in my pieces. And then it started to feel like me, the reason why I joined that DigiGirl group was because the 3D motion design industry and the graphic design industry is predominantly male. And so I didn't really feel the work that I saw, especially on Behance or Pinterest, are always come from a male point of view. Or, is not coming from a Chinese point of view, like a minority point of view. So I felt you know what, I am just going to put work out there. That feels more like me, even though it might not be trendy. It might not be, the most popular thing on social media, but I'm going [00:19:00] to start creating things like that. And that stemmed from my 3D work and followed into my digital fashion work. And I think this is what makes my work unique because it is. my experiences, my culture, my identity put into my work, a lot of people talk about style, right? They say, how'd you find your style? How do I build a style? style is really something that is already within you.

It is your experiences and your culture. Your identity is all about that. It's things that you like. It's things that you enjoy, things that you have seen and you connect all of this, these interests, and meanings in your life, and you, visualize it in a way. And so I think the pandemic was actually a blessing for me personally, for my career, because it gave me so much more time to experiment and think about the type of work I did want to create and put out into the world.

Radim Malinic: I like what you said [00:20:00] about trends and styles, because you can easily replicate the trend that's going on. You say you got your likes, you followed the right hashtags, you put the stuff in the right places and people go because people like the same, people like more of the same, the algorithm loves more of the same, but I think we are now very evidently finding out that it stifles the growth, it stifles where we're going because we saturate a bubble.

And then it's the bubble's full. What do we do with it? just more of it. let's make it bigger. And I think, at of Barcelona Max from, max Ion from Rugged Edge did a very great talk about, everything being the same. Because it goes quickly to that acceptance.

if you do what already is out there, the algorithm will reward you. But it's not exactly gonna push your career to another level because you are just, you're not a chameleon, you're just a clone and you clone and clone and clone. I think for a, breeding ground of new ideas, it's if people do it for a minute, just to get their sort of technical skills right, [00:21:00] then that's good.

But I think it's, how do you let go?did you feel that it's Stepping into almost a sort of new space was a little bit, I'm trying to find the right word that doesn't sound like it's too severe, but did you feel like it was brave choice?

It was a sort of stepping into the unknown because also around 2020, it was the world of NFT and Metaverse. when everyone was like, what NFT, what Metaverse, like we all played Sims on Windows 7 or whatever it was on 98. But obviously this is a whole new, new game. So you're, you doubling down on who you are and your identity and visual, expression.

How did it feel like?

Steffi Fung: I think it took me roughly a year of creating digital fashion that I felt confident enough to go freelance. And so during that time of experimentation, I'm still working full time. I was still, using my evenings and my spare time to create content and to create new work and experiments. So I [00:22:00] think having that safety net really helps me and not be so scared of failing. but I think during that time of digital fashion, it was new, and it's still new to this day, with digital fashion. So there's so much unexplored potential in this But back then, four years ago, it was still new. extremely new and there was only a few key players that were really pushing digital fashion forward and with the rise of NFTs and Metaverse and all of that, that bubble going up, I think it was just a great time of exploration for digital assets to just And what really pushed forward the NFT movement was actually art, which I find fascinating because it gave so many 3D artists, not just 3D artists, so many artists in general, whether they worked in 3D or graphic design, or if they were a painter, it gave them freedom to make income from another revenue [00:23:00] stream that they didn't have to rely on clients.

And actually that was the main reason why I didn't. just fully rely on just my full time employment at the time, because I found that my work was being received well from people on the internet and they collected my work and I don't have to rely on clients. I don't have to rely on my full time job.

It was just an additional. income stream where people appreciated arts that was not for a client. It wasn't to solve a problem. It was just purely to express, my identity and experiments and put out new work in the world. So that felt, elevating at that point. It It was like a relief because digital artists could finally be rewarded for their work. And we don't have to go through middlemen or middle platforms where they would take a cut off the fee. And it was just a really good time because everyone was looking, everyone was looking at NFTs. It was such a huge buzzword. And so with the rise of digital goods, then there was the metaverse. And [00:24:00] of course, in a metaverse, you need avatars, you need digital fashion.

Avatars need something to wear. And so there was this huge idea that digital fashion was going to blow up. It was going to take over. And there was a point during to 2022 where it really thrived. And then AI came and then everybody jumped into the AI bandwagon. And so that was that, but. Digital fashion is still here, the potential of people using it is still there, and actually, as I learn more about the fashion industry, more and more people will be needing digital fashion services, as we go through, in the future, I would say.

Radim Malinic: If I could ask you a few more questions about NFTs and the whole bubble, because. It was such a exciting and a confusing time at the same no at the same time It was so exciting and confusing because as you said Lots of 3D artists became 3D NFT artists or they were not crypto artists. And I'm [00:25:00] thinking, you were not a crypto artist yesterday.

again, I believe in taking on a job title or identity that makes you feel like a superhero. And I think NFTs did something that. We were almost longing for it to happen in some way or another. Like we would hope from a traditional sort of perspective of selling prints as a designer or an illustrator, like you would hope that people would come and buy lots of your prints and you ship them around the world.

And all of a sudden NFT happened and people were having their stuff bought and it empowered them to feel finally. Something's happening that actually I can make an additional income or big income. Some people have done really well. Some people have already lost all of their money because it was a bit like a lottery, like I think all of a sudden people were empowered, had more cash than they ever had before.

And, they just didn't really think wisely. But do you think that. NFTs is still a thing, right? you've recently released a collection, which is still NFT. NFTs are still bubbling under the surface, but obviously that peak and plateau has already happened. Do you think [00:26:00] that sometimes the lack of focus and just going after the trend and the latest thing could be detrimental to such thing?

Because I think NFTs it in a way could have potentially yielded better sort of cultural benefit more collaboration because it almost felt and correct me if I'm wrong but it almost felt oh now it's my time to do really well out of this as well as like a smash and grab and in a way like as quickly as it came up and obviously was bubbling under the surface for a while

Steffi Fung: Yeah.

Radim Malinic: everything happened in the space of a year and now it feels like it was killed off so do you think that It didn't have enough time in the sun or enough focus or was it just a bubble?

is your view on all of that?

Steffi Fung: Yeah. I was on Twitter before the NFT boom happened and I was just there probably posting some sassy tweets, posting my work. And suddenly I see people posting their work with hashtag crypto art. And I asked my friend, I said, what [00:27:00] is crypto art? What is this? I was so confused. It was a new term. I didn't get it. And so I was a bit, hesitant to go into the crypto space and NFT space because I had no idea what it was. And then as soon as people kept making sales from their own work and people collected their work and more people decided to come onto Twitter and I suddenly saw an influx of people that I would see on Instagram making all these trendy, 3D, animations on social media, suddenly they're on Twitter. And I thought, Oh, There's a whole movement happening here. What's going on? And actually it was a really lovely time because During that time, I think it was during 2020 to 2022, I have never spoken to so many artists in my life. I've never made better connections in my life because everyone was so enthusiastic about pushing art towards the world. So to me, it was actually a great movement where a lot of 3D artists [00:28:00] came together and as you said, empowered. They felt empowered, finally, that we don't have to rely on clients. We don't have to rely on full time work to get there. be appreciated for our craft because a lot of digital art can sometimes be looked down upon or be brushed aside about with how it's made in comparison to traditional art. With digital art, a lot of people don't realize how much time and craft and skills is needed to create. a visual piece that is 3D. And so I think with a lot of 3D artists, they finally felt appreciated, including myself, that our art had some value to it finally. And so during that time, everyone came in, everyone was chatting, the enthusiasm was there. And I think the NFT boom, the reason why it probably just dropped, and you're talking about the culture, was it too fast? It's because there was [00:29:00] monetary value attached to it. and of course with the whole Beeple thing when he, I think, how much did he raise millions? he.

sold millions and millions. 

So Beeple, if you guys don't know who Beeple is, I don't know where you've been. You're under a rock, but he has been, even prior to crypto, prior to the NFT boom, he has been one of the most well known 3D artists in the space. So if he could make it, that meant all of the rest of us could make it.

And so it was this beacon of hope. It was a good time. collaborated with so many. artists during that time. I talked to many artists, which I never got from other social media platforms. Suddenly everyone was chatting to each other, boosting each other up. So there was a sense of high morale and community, strong community during that time.

And I loved it because I never felt that from any other social media place. before, on Instagram, it was just, oh, it looks great. Wow. You would just get one word of comments like that. But actually [00:30:00] on Twitter, it felt like you could genuinely have a conversation with people and actually get to know them. And so during that time, I really appreciated the community factor of it. And of course, not only earning from crypto, which was completely new, but also, I think everybody was in this dream phase where everything was all good and we just didn't know, nobody knew that it was gonna plateau. Nobody knew. So it was just more so timing and luck. I think with any trend that happens, you're either lucky or you're either too late. So it's just one of those. And if you're part of the movement, it's fine. But I try to not think about it too deeply because,when I talked about digital fashion, NFTs, metaphors, and suddenly AI came along, suddenly everything is all about AI. And again, it's just another thing, which I believe AI Continuously be in our lives. It's not gonna be the forefront of every advert, it's just going to be a tool that's gonna be so normalized after ai, what is next? So it is just one of these things that as [00:31:00] a creative, and especially if you work in tech industry, you just got to learn to adapt to the times.

Mm-hmm

Radim Malinic: let's talk about a point about artist and designer, because I know those two terms is something that you, let's say struggle with. I see it's two terms that you are mulling over. Am I artist? Am I designer? Question is, does it matter? Which one you are? Time

Steffi Fung: So I think personally it doesn't matter to me as much anymore because I've become More confident in who I am as a designer or artist, but if you're asking me for other people It depends on your job, really. It depends what you want in life. I would say for me, as I started out as a graphic designer, the aim as a designer is always to solve a problem.

It is always to solve a problem for someone, design wise, whatever it is. So essentially you're working for a client, they've got a problem, they want you to solve it with a design. You do it, right? I got to a point where I don't really want [00:32:00] to work for people in that way anymore because I believe that my work stands up by itself.

You And that is when I would say the past four years I have been practicing more as an artist with design skills. And if need be, I have the skills to work as a designer. If all of this fails, I can work back as a designer. It's not a problem. But I think, for the brand that I'm building right now, I think having confidence in your identity really helps to push that artist side. Because artist is all about how you feel personally. It's so subjective. It really is subjective. And that's the difference between artist and a designer. Designers solve problems at the end of the day, and artists, they just create what they feel is, so just subjective in that way, but I think coming from a design background, it really has helped me define my style. as well. So I think, there's a benefit to both. And there's a time where I need to feel more like a designer, [00:33:00] especially when I'm making marketing materials for my content. I'm like, damn, these graphic design skills have become very useful. And then when I need to create my art, then I will become more of an artist.

So I think it is just something you can flow between.

Radim Malinic: I'm currently mulling over the term 21st, that we are 21st century creatives. I think in the last few years, since 2020 or since late 2010s, I feel like our identities are blending into just our output rather than, design, art, content creation, because the landscape is changing, and I think it was Sager Meister who once said, like design has to work, the art doesn't, and we talk about problem solving and creative stuff like, what you creating for yourself, It's the philosophy of what you stand for, and it doesn't matter if it's a spoken word, it could be a poetry, it could be a pattern, it could be a physical piece, it could be, a digital fashion, because I think the [00:34:00] edges are blurring, therefore it gives us a bit more freedom, because when you mentioned you travel into your day job and not necessarily be creatively satisfied, My thought on this is that if your job doesn't provide you creative satisfaction, you're in the wrong job.

it's easy to think. that you need to stick to certain rules to add up the equation so it provides an income.

Whereas we have an infrastructure now that you can do anything and that sort of provides you with some income. Because if you really put that expression of your soul and actually create pieces that stand for who you are, then People will buy into it, because you stand for something.

Steffi Fung: I would say that anyone can start their own brand, personal brand, and it doesn't have to be to sell something, but in terms of your work and your body of work and who you are, because of social media, anyone can have a platform these days. And if you're willing to put in the work, you can just start creating your own brand and who you are, even as a designer, even as an [00:35:00] artist, people like to see that, they like to, see the authenticity or the human side of design, which, that was something I didn't really get as I was in university, it was all, during that time, social media was all about pristine, perfect finished work. And that's when you would comment, wow, amazing. I love that. And all of these dry comments that really didn't really understand the work, but now you will see on social media, people will actually explain and actually show the person behind it. They will show the process and it is a love hate feel because some artists don't feel the need to show themselves or they don't want to be a content creator as such. I personally have found power in being able to show that my work is recognizable with my face and my face is also recognizable with my work and that people can see the person behind it and they can understand my work better.

Radim Malinic: Personal branding, so much being said about personal branding to the point where [00:36:00] it's come to the prominence some 20, 25 years ago, now the people who are pushing this as a, yeah, you needed personal branding back in the day, It wasn't even Debbie Millman who said, I think we just should let it go.

But I think the entry to the world is much easier when you are who you are when you double down on who you are because it's so easy as we just chatted through this conversation, it's so easy to be somebody else and it's easy to be emulating somebody else. So in terms of personal branding for you, conscious decision, natural flow, How much work do you put into your personal brand?

Steffi Fung: I think for me it's one of the most I would say easy for me, actually, because when you're talking about yourself, you know yourself the best, really. And actually, every single thing that I make, everything that I believe in or I talk about, is branding people talk about strategy and all of that, but I think when it comes to personal branding, when it's coming from you, it doesn't have [00:37:00] to be so strategized as much anymore.

And I say that because people can literally turn on the camera, don't have amazing lighting, and they just voice their opinion or they talk about a story, they talk about their perspective, and they can still build an amazing personal brand that people are willing to follow. So I think the entry to, creating a personal brand is what you make of it.

If you want to be,If you want to make it high quality, you want to have all the kit and do that. if that's how you want to portray your personal brand, then go for it. But I don't think you need all of that. You don't need all of that to start. And that's what I like to tell people is that if you've got a voice and you've got an opinion, and especially coming from a creative, if you can create amazing visuals and you're good at what you do, show it, talk about it. some people are willing to listen. And if you don't, start, nobody's going to hear you, especially in social media when everything is a one second scroll. If you can't get someone's [00:38:00] attention, you're gone. And it can be demoralizing at some time at some points, because sometimes you can create You know, you can create amazing work and sometimes the algorithm does not work in your favor. And so the difficult thing about personal brand is tying your self worth to all of this algorithm metrics, whether it's likes and engagement. So I think you really have got to have thick skin to put yourself out there as well. And I think at the end of the day, if you know your work is good, then that is all that matters.

But if you want to get better at talking, that's something you can always improve on. If you want to get better at social media, then I think there's, a lot of soft skills, actually, that I would recommend, which I think a lot of creatives tend to be introverts. They don't tend to be quite precious about their work. how they create things and they might not want to share. I've personally gone the opposite of that, where I've just overshared every [00:39:00] single time that this is what I do, this is how you do it. And I think that is something that people like because they like to, hear about the process and they like to know about your story.

So I think at the end of the day, it is not a bravery or being brave, but I think for most creatives, it is something that is not as natural because Talking in front of a camera can be quite awkward and, putting yourself on a platform can be quite awkward too. But if you really want people to hear you, you have to put yourself out there on social media, especially if you want to build a platform, if you want to build an audience, if you want people to look at your personal brand as well.

Yes. Mm

Radim Malinic: Let's unpick this a little bit. cause you said quite a few interesting things. I like your analogy of one second scroll, but then you followed it up with, you need to have a thick skin. it seems quite already quite tumultuous on a way to build a personal brand. It's like you put your work out there, [00:40:00] you might not have as much engagement.

And I loved when you talked earlier about it. Wow. Oh, wow. What is this? like this kind of I think almost automated comments that were just showing up on Instagram posts because How reliant are we now on social media to be that sort of broadcasting channel to find new people?

Because yes, we've got more of it. We've got more profiles. We've got more people looking at it, but there's also, in a way, if you allow it, more competition, there's more noise. I'm sure we both agree that personal branding is one way to do it. But are we now doing the thing that everybody else is doing?

Are we scared that if you're not on social that people won't be found because you're not necessarily doing the work? Because it's a busy space. and I've been, currently rewriting my TED talk. And it's a surfing story about how we follow the waves and how, you need to be at one with creativity, which is the wave.

And I'm thinking, if everyone could serve, there'd be no space in the [00:41:00] water, because everyone will be in the water, hypothetically, you know?how do we find that sort of unique voice that makes you visible? Because we rely on social media more than ever before. And it's a harder space because you say you need to have a thick skin.

So all of a sudden that dream of being a person of brand and broadcasting to the world and switching the camera on and telling the story, and then almost being ready to build your resilience from day one, because everyone who starts. Their little, social media brand. Let's got high expectations.

We all want to be viral. I can't speak for myself, there's wants to be viral. there's, there's evidence that you can go viral and if you don't, is it disheartening? So the element of social media have essential, And what is the alternative?

Steffi Fung: Yeah. let's put the expectation into place. You are not going to post one video and it's going to go viral and you're going to get millions of followers. It's very rare that that happens. It does happen to maybe one out of a million people, but in order to build a personal brand, [00:42:00] it has to be consistent.

Any brand has to be consistent because you wouldn't want a million people coming to your viral video and they don't actually really understand what you do and they're not invested in what you do. And so. When I think about it, I don't think that there's too many people, if I'm honest. I think you are either the type of person who watches content and consumes content and you're happy doing that, or you're the type of person who wants to make the content, to be a broadcaster. So I think with social media it has given power to more people to become their own broadcaster, to become their own voice and skip the traditional means of media to become famous. You don't need to have PR, you don't need to go to TV, you don't need to go to like, all of these traditional places, which are typically very hard to get into. And so with social media, it is very freeing to be able to just post your voice and your story and to build something essentially for free. That's [00:43:00] debatable, but essentially for free that you can start building a platform of your own and a community of your own where people can listen to you. And I did say you need to have thick skin because most of the times when you start in the beginning, you're not going to be very good at it. I wasn't very good at the beginning. I, of course I was following trends. I didn't really know what to post.

And actually the dilemma that I faced during early 2020s was that I kept posting just my work, and my work's amazing. Great. But suddenly I needed to post my face and talk about, a brand reached out to me saying, Oh, okay, can you talk about this product? And I think it really aligns with what you do.

And I said, you know what, this is a great project. Let's do this. When I posted my face, nobody knew who I was because they only recognized my work. I didn't know who I was, so there was a bit of disconnect there, that's when I realised, oh, okay, I've been just posting my work, and people appreciate it, but now they don't know who I am as a person. Now I need to change up my [00:44:00] content so that they can see my face and my work. And Ever since then, I've been doing that so that people can make the connection and that they can connect to the human side of my personal brand. So when you do start out on social media, you're going to have times where you create, you spend time creating content and it just doesn't perform well. I'm still questioning why at some points, I look at it and I thought, okay, I spent a whole day filming, whole day editing,not as much engagement as I would like, what, let's move on to the next one. So that is what I mean by having thick skin, because you will get people, who just won't watch your content.

You will get people who we'll write horrible comments because it's the internet. But your work is good. believe in what you do. You just got to be consistent and keep going at it because the more videos you post, the more you learn from it, you can see what works.

You can see what doesn't work. And if you do as a creative, want to become a voice in this space or want to become, want to grow your personal brand, you need to just [00:45:00] consistently put yourself out there. Yeah.

Radim Malinic: effect, isn't it? It's just what you do, it just adds up to bit by bit. And sometimes progress is a viral video. And sometimes progress is a video that nobody watches, even though you spend day on it. And I think it must be something in, in, the equation because.

The longer you spend on a video, sometimes the less, the fewer people watch it. And then you go, Oh, I've got this idea, let's put it out there. And it just goes, crazy. And I think it's always that anticipation of, you put in real focus on detail of the work, and if you said one second scroll, just a little engagement because we are busy and it's interesting, you said, I don't think there's too many people.

That's a good way to see it because I your view on it, like there's creators and there's viewers, and sometimes, a bit of both, but I don't think you can do both really well. you can be easily passive and just spend time on it and learn.

And, or you can just get into that creator mode and focus on that because if you try to be [00:46:00] both, then I guess you're always fighting the interest and you're always fighting the available time of when you can get out of this. I want to talk about the learning and teaching because you said you are from the school of YouTube, so you spend time, with some, with Guerrilla videos, and I think what they did for the world of 3D, I think is incredible.

And I think that their story also is quite incredible. I think the guy's called Nick, right?

Your focus, let's talk about how did you focus on this journey of learning and how do you now try to give it to the others? Because you said, you're one of your titles is educator. So how did your own experience of learning influence now in the way of giving back?

Steffi Fung: Oh, I have watched so many tutorials by this point that I know what is a good tutorial and what is a bad tutorial, and I've watched so many tutorials that have sent me to sleep. I've watched very good tutorials where the enthusiasm's there, they've got things like you know when you're surfing on your computer on the internet and you've got the mouse cursor and [00:47:00] they've actually got something to highlight it?

Even small things like that. makes the experience of a tutorial 100 percent better because you're not searching on the screen. Where is the mouse? Where's the mouse? I can't see it. I can't see it. So even just small things like that, I'm quite aware of now. So I give all my thanks to anyone who spent their time educating people on the internet for free.

And that is typically where YouTube has come in for me. And I actually learned also on Twitch streams with a guy who just streamed every single week. And he created digital fashion outfits, and I would just tune into his live stream saying, How did you do that? what did you just do? Can you show me that one more time? And, it was just that live interaction of talking to someone who is a bit more knowledgeable than me, that I could learn a lot quicker. And so now that I've learned all my skills from the past, I think I've been doing 3D for 2018, six years now. Wow. Six years and digital fashion for four years. [00:48:00] So it's been a long time now. And so I've solidified my skills in those fields. I feel like I've gotten to a point where I can share back my knowledge. But to be honest, during 2020, when I posted my first digital fashion piece, I wasn't even scared that my piece wasn't that amazing. I've always had this bravery to just post what I'm learning anyways.

So I think just showing people the process. and then talking about the process, which is what I typically do in my videos. I actually show them from beginning to end. How do I make a digital fashion outfit? Which programs do I use? And so it's usually edited in a way that is quite easily digestible for people to see. And then I decided to take it a step further. I thought, okay, people are clearly interested in this, whatever I'm creating. What if I actually started a Patreon, where I go deeper? What if I started my own YouTube channel, where I give out free tutorials as do things that the people that I've learned from do the same thing that, they did. And so now I'm [00:49:00] diving into this space where I am a designer, I am an artist, I'm creating my digital fashion pieces, but I still really want to give back to the community because there is a huge gap right now between people who understand fashion and people who understand 3D. There are 3D people who are really good at 3D that don't understand how construct a fashion piece, and that was me. I'm still learning I think during 2020. that was definitely me. time has passed and I've improved now. And then there are fashion designers who want to get into 3D and we all know how overwhelming 3D can be. It is a huge topic. So both are very technical and so there is a gap between people who are really good at both. And so want to close that gap. I want to inspire. the next generation of digital fashion artists to come into the space. I don't think it's my job, but it's actually something I really enjoy. I really enjoy just sharing back and, giving knowledge to people just like the people did [00:50:00] online for me when I started out.

So really do enjoy that part. And that is why I'm quite passionate about sharing the knowledge and upskilling digital fashion people who want to come into the space.

Radim Malinic: what a great and worthy cause, because it's, I think that's how we grow and how we learn. We learn because by sharing. more about what we know and telling people how much they can grow, we can protect ourselves from that hysteria of the new, because with every little piece. of knowledge that you learn, ground is a bit firmer.

you just, you don't feel like, Oh, what's happened? am I, will I be out of a job? No, because what you've quite incredibly explained from, throughout this conversation is that you worked on yourself. You worked on who you are, what you want to do. You put time in to understand what you can do with your tools.

And you had a slide your talk with. God knows how many little thumbnails of applications that you use because being 21st century creative, we [00:51:00] got more technology, more opportunity, more connections.

We've got, it's a Narnia, like we've got this incredible world that sometimes it takes a little bit extra time to understand what we can do with it. But we are so creatively privileged because we can be anything what we want. And I just like that you say, I want to give time back and teach people because it can be freaking scary when you open anything, especially 3D, or any of those, 20 applications that you had on the screen.

I'm exaggerating, but,where'd you take your first move? Where'd you take your first step? what does make you excited? Because we can be chameleons,you can borrow trends but it takes time to find yourself and to double down on who you are because the world is easily perceived if you are trying to be somebody else because you're emulating their work whereas there's a space for all of us there's not each of us is unique we overlap around the edges we've got things in common about we are unique so I applaud you for what you do and what you've created so far because Giving back is, I think it [00:52:00] is the form of, generosity that, keeps on giving, makes the world a better place.

 what's the future of what you do and where's the next time, where do you see yourself in the immediate and, not so distant future?

Steffi Fung: It's a very interesting industry to be in because digital fashion is so future facing.as Niall said, I mentioned in the beginning that you can jump into the metaverse, you can make metaverse skins, you can go onto platforms like fortnite or roblox and create gaming skins, you could even go into augmented reality if meta just release their new glasses which is going against apple vision pro in terms of overlaying, augmented reality on top of what you can see. So it's mixed reality glasses, The idea is that digital fashion would be able to interact in different points in our lives, and it's not just one place, which is so fascinating. It can be on different platforms, on different games, and not just games, because I talk about games quite a lot, but [00:53:00] fashion and gaming industry are continuously merging. And I believe this very interesting example. with ABBA Voyage. It was an ABBA concert and it was all virtual. There was no ABBA there, physically there. They were all created as avatars, that everything was done virtually, and I believe They managed to sell or have a revenue of 2 million a weekend, A week, 

which was absolutely insane for a virtual experience.

And I also think about the sphere in Las Vegas. Absolutely insane. Immersive experiences are only just going to get better. there is that point where immersive experiences, gaming, and actually in the fashion industry, they will also need to uptake these digital fashion skills into their pipeline. for sustainability reasons as well. So there's a huge potential in terms of digital [00:54:00] fashion of where it can go into, and it will touch different points in our lives in the future. And I'm just very excited to build a brand in this space. And I actually can't say what I'm going to be doing in the next five years, because again, it's a future facing industry that I don't actually know where I'm going to be. But one thing's for sure, the core of my business is always digital first and it's always to express my British Chinese Identity. So I know whatever I if I do end up going into augmented reality, if I go into making my own digital and physical pieces, I know that it's gonna be everything that I make is gonna be a part of me, a part of my identity. So it's exciting times. I think you should ask me this question again in a few years time and then can catch up and see where I will be.

Radim Malinic: mean, it's been my pleasure to be following your work and see what you've been doing because yeah, it's future facing, it's happening now. And the possibilities are unpredictable. So I wish you all the best on your [00:55:00] journey. It's been great. Thank 

you for coming today. 

Steffi Fung: Thank you. 

Radim Malinic: ​

USBPre2-7: I thank you for listening to this episode of mindful creative podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, write and manage editing. An audio production was massively done by Neil McKay from 7 million bikes podcast. And the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you. 

And I hope to see you on the next episode.