Creative Director Edward Yeung Prioritizes Representation in Their Work, a “Beautiful Crusade for Good”
Interview by Trey Alston / Working Not Working Member
If you’re into music and on Spotify, chances are that you’ve seen Edward Yeung’s creative imprint on the platform. The award-winning (Young Guns 18) non-binary interdisciplinary creative, based in New York City, is an Associate Creative Director on its Artists Marketing Team where they’ve worked on different rollouts for artists such as Billie Eilish, BLACKPINK, and Maluma. Along with their role as a Co-Founder of the brand Crushed Tonic that releases a variety of health-focused products, Yeung’s hands are full as they continue to realize the full extent of their creative abilities.
From attending the School of Visual Arts to joining Anomaly as a designer and realizing that they wanted to be an Art Director, to pivoting to creative direction, ruminating on winning Young Guns 18, and even detailing their role at Spotify, Yeung spoke with Working Not Working about it all.
Check out our candid conversation with them below.
Who is Edward Yeung?
That’s me! I’m a non-binary interdiscipliny creative based in New York City. At Spotify, I'm an Associate Creative Director for the Music Marketing Team, which means I get the pleasure of working with different musical artists every day. Often when an artist has an upcoming album or a new single coming out, Spotify will promote their music from our end. In short, we create different campaigns for artists such as Billie Eilish, Maluma, or BLACKPINK—three artists that I ended up working with most recently (also some of my favs).
I'm also a co-founder of Crushed Tonic; we are an ingestible collagen brand! We like to see ourselves as half K-Beauty and half wellness, since we offer collagen, biotin, probiotics, and superfoods that you can drink in order to care for your skin, hair, and overall health from the inside out.
What inspired you to get into advertising?
To be honest, I kind of just fell into it! Long story short, in high school I was an extremely depressed, overexerted, tired individual always trying to be someone I wasn’t. When I let go of a lot of those external factors to survive, I realized that I loved drawing and painting. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who introduced me to graphic design who convinced me that I could actually make a sustainable career in that field.
From there, I attended the School of Visual Arts with the hopes of pursuing Design, but ended up double majoring in Advertising. I had always assumed that I would work at a pure design shop, but when I met with Cynthia Pratomo and Andrew Guirguis at Anomaly, I fell in love with their energies and decided to take my first full-time role there as part of the design team. I’ve always strived to continue to learn and grow, and somewhere along the way, the role “designer” stopped feeling like the right fit. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to transition into an art director role, and I guess that’s how I landed in the advertising industry.
You won Young Guns 18. What was the process like of selecting your work and how did you feel when you won?
I did! When I found out that I won, I was beyond shocked and definitely felt a mixed bag of emotions. To be honest, I’m still not sure if I have fully processed how I feel about it now. At that moment a few months ago, I felt extremely lucky because I know how much the creative industry revolves around luck and timing. I felt humbled, because I wasn’t sure if it was my year to win yet, especially seeing all of the other talented finalists in the Advertising category (many of which I’ve looked up to). I felt grateful, to all of my friends and family, especially to my best friend Alex who encouraged me to enter when I had decided not to since I was going through a lot in my personal life. And lastly, I felt excited in both a hopeful and scary way, because I felt like some aspects of my life would change and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.
When selecting my work for the Young Guns, I tried my best to showcase what I truly care about. Representation has been a topic that I have become really focused on in my work, probably because I felt really under-represented in American media growing up as a queer Asian-American. All six of the projects I selected highlight representation in different degrees.
“When selecting my work for the Young Guns, I tried my best to showcase what I truly care about. Representation has been a topic that I have become really focused on in my work, probably because I felt really under-represented in American media growing up as a queer Asian-American. All six of the projects I selected highlight representation in different degrees.”
What changed about that particular process compared to the previous two that you didn't win? Why do you think you won that time?
In past years, I tried to show a range of projects that really focused on a consistent visual style. As an art director, I was super strict about what it meant to have visual cohesion when showcasing different pieces. This year, I tried really hard to choose with my heart and to choose projects that I felt strongly about, even if that meant that as a whole, they varied in aesthetic. In my previous two submissions, rather than going with my heart, I went with my brain. I submitted projects that I thought could be “award-winning” or submitted projects that I thought the jury would want to see, even though I had no idea what those things really are. I’m sure that insecurity probably translated, because I was not confident in those submissions.
I still can’t be completely sure why I won this time, but the projects I chose featured themes that are extremely important to me: inclusion, representation, and advocacy. I think with everything happening with the state of the world, I’d like to think that the jury valued those qualities and themes more this year than in past years. Again, I can’t know for sure what they saw, and in no way view myself as a social advocate yet, but I’m extremely honored that some people see me that way. Below is a juror quote that I hold near and dear to my heart.
"What’s better than spectacular work? Spectacular work with purpose! Edward brings forth their activism in an unapologetically rich and vibrant style, giving a platform and a voice to the marginalised. Their socially-charged work is a beautiful crusade for good that empowers and uplifts both visually and emotively.”
- Hira Mohibullah, Executive Creative Director of BBDO Pakistan
How would you say that winning an award has impacted your career? Have you gotten more offers because of it?
I don’t think that much has changed honestly! I think I’ve been seen by more eyes than I had been before. I get more letters in my inbox—some are job opportunities, some are other young minds with kind words, some are hate mail. I haven’t gotten any offers, but I also haven’t been looking! 2020 was a difficult year for me in many ways, but I am also extremely grateful and recognize the successes that it has graced me as well. For the majority of my life, I have always been running to get to what’s next. Winning Young Guns was a long-term goal of mine as a student, so now that I have achieved it, I think the biggest impact has been on myself rather than on my career. I’m currently taking some time and energy to reflect on what I want to do next and trying hard to protect my mental health.
“I love touching every aspect of a project, not just the design portion, and I didn’t want to be expected to only design. As a creative director, I still get to design at times and many people view that as an additional strength, but when I was a designer, there were limits on what others would trust me to work on.”
What was your pivot like from design to creative direction? How did you decide the latter was better for you?
The pivot was overall really natural and I think it was because before I started creative directing, I had started to adopt the mindset of creative direction. Even when I was in a design role, I had always been thinking about other aspects of the work like the writing or the production. The only reason I felt the need to pivot was because of expectations. I love touching every aspect of a project, not just the design portion, and I didn’t want to be expected to only design. As a creative director, I still get to design at times and many people view that as an additional strength, but when I was a designer, there were limits on what others would trust me to work on.
What defines great creative direction for you?
There are so many aspects of great creative direction, but some of the qualities I value are concept, visuals, language, behavior, and execution. Not each creative project needs to hit it out of the park in all those areas, but I think a successful creative project needs to excel in at least one.
What are your ultimate career goals?
So many tough questions! As I mentioned before, I’ve always been running to what’s next and currently I’m trying to really appreciate everything in my life. Some aspirations I’m curious about are if I want to transition more into business or film directing.
With Crushed Tonic, we currently get to help a bunch of folx feel more confident in their own skin. Hoping that in the next few years, we can really expand our product offerings to help even more people with other issues. One issue that I’ve struggled with is depression, so a goal of mine would be to offer a product that can help others manage that.