Aldon Chen
From questions to clarity: junior designer Aldon Chen reflects on building a meaningful creative practice
For Aldon Chen, design is not just about aesthetics – it’s also about broader philosophical ideas. Websites reveal ways of seeing the world, typefaces shape meaning, techniques align with personal beliefs. We speak to Aldon about where their unique approach emerged from, how it’s carried them through their creative career and why they sustain a creative practice that’s as reflective as it is disciplined
About my work
My creative practice
During the day, I’m a junior designer at 2x4, where I support the team across a variety of projects – this can include anything from helping with strategizing, designing, oversight and occasionally coding. During the evenings and weekends, I work on personal or freelance projects, which range from designing typefaces to developing websites. If I’m not doing any of those things, I tend to be practicing music or writing.
My influences and inspirations
I used to joke that I was a liberal arts student trapped in a design program because my greatest influences so far have come from outside the design tradition. Maggie Nelson’s writing and criticism had an enormous impact on me growing up, as did Chris Kraus’ novels, Ursula Le Guin’s essays and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas.
I think a lot of my work and ethical perspective, especially when I was a student, had traces of their influence. The liberal arts taught me to understand design as situated within a larger continuum of human thought, which made it genuinely meaningful to me as a way of engaging with issues that extend far beyond design itself.
Process shots of AC-1, a typeface Aldon created
My training
Not technically. It might seem obvious, but really, what seems to matter most is just sheer experience. In hindsight, that was one of the most important parts of my education at design school. The countless projects I worked on weren’t necessarily ones I’d enjoy now, but each one accelerated my experience by sharpening how I think and work.
Building that clarity and adaptability was the real training. It now allows me to think structurally about my process, which is incredibly useful when dealing with different projects, each with their own nuances and contexts.
Favourite recent project
I recently wrote an essay, Clearly Magic, which is about transparent electronics: what they are, why they’re interesting artifacts, and what kind of relationship with technology they seem to assume. It was a fascinating experience to try to make a critical argument about something so specific, and to do it in a way that is sharp but hopefully still accessible and generous in tone. Somehow, I ended up tying together anthropology, the glass octopus, and childhood anecdotes about small moving toys.
A normal day usually looks like…
I wake up around 7am, go on my phone until my 8am alarm, and commute to work by 9.30am. I usually have lunch at the park around 12.30pm, and then I’m back in the office until around 6.30pm.
Evenings are usually for music practice, jazz shows, friends or personal work. I sleep around midnight. I’m a bit of a workaholic, I suppose – not in the corporate sense, but in that I really resonate with Hannah Arendt’s distinction of “work” as a way of engaging with the world through durable objects.
My starter pack includes...
- Way too much black colored clothing (I read How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are by Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline De Maigret and Sophie Mas and enjoyed it way too much)
- Meticulous, endlessly nested Figma auto-layouts
- The music from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom
- Lana Del Rey’s Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass audio poetry, for looking out the window and missing the Southern California coast
“One of the great things about my earliest experiences was the unspoken grace that came with everyone knowing I was a beginner.”
How I got here
Starting my creative journey
I started freelancing during my first year of college – I was used to juggling multiple things at once, so I basically said yes to every job I could get. Some challenged me technically; others I would feel ambivalent about for a variety of reasons. I wanted to be taken seriously as a professional, but in hindsight, I was probably too hard on myself.
One of the great things about my earliest experiences was the unspoken grace that came with everyone knowing I was a beginner. If I tried earnestly, with humility and openness, people were often generous with their help and forgiving of the inevitable fumbles. That all eventually led me to an internship at 2x4, which I consider to be my first real time navigating work in a professional environment. Towards the end of that internship, I was offered the staff position I hold now.
Landing my first few jobs, clients and commissions
Mostly through school, especially with the help of my teachers. I never actively sought out my first few jobs — they were either small opportunities around school that I took my shot at, or projects I started myself that just snowballed. Those projects gave me something to connect to other people with and eventually those connections led to jobs. But even now, there’s no real formula for it. I think being honest and outspoken with my intentions and trying to act in good faith more or less draws the right people in or helps me find them.
Portrait of a Class, a memento for one of Aldon’s classes at ArtCenter
Biggest challenges along the way
Learning to clarify what I actually want. Determination and persistence tend to lead me to what I’m looking for in some form – but I’m always surprised at how difficult it is to separate desire from influence, with outside factors telling me what I should or shouldn’t want.
When I was younger, I wanted status but couldn’t admit it – because what could be more opposite to status than wanting it? When I realized that came from vanity and career anxiety, it became easier to separate it from what actually fulfilled me. Once I clarified what I genuinely found meaningful and wanted to work towards, my motivation became steadier.
Skills I've found helpful for my creative work
Clarity, whether it's from design or writing or anywhere else, applies everywhere. I use that clarity for creative discernment: picking out what I’m going to wear, figuring out what ingredients go together, articulating the differences between a scent or a sound. But I also use it for more practical things like creating invoices that are legible, or ideating clever ways to make furniture have multiple functions in cramped spaces.
“Whether it’s design, coding, writing, or working in a woodshop, engaging deeply with and moving between fields reveals how porous their boundaries are.”
Your social media and self-promotion vibe is…
Right now it’s not very important job-wise. Every job I’ve gotten so far was either through the people around me or through self-initiated work. For me, social media is more of a way to stay in the orbit of past collaborators and friends in the industry. I do, however, think it’s important to share work both publicly and privately. I see it as a way of making my ideas and values known.
Three things you've found useful in your career:
My career is still beginning so it feels early to say what’s been most useful. But as a design student, here are a few.
- Reading widely and deeply — I read what I thought would help with design (like Graphic Design Discourse and Looking Closer) but also philosophy, science, criticism and literature.
- Writing as a tool for design — Improving my writing fundamentally strengthened my design work; the two go hand-in-hand for me. Writing is my way of engaging with, clarifying and testing design.
- Practicing across disciplines — Whether it’s design, coding, writing, or working in a woodshop, engaging deeply with and moving between fields reveals how porous their boundaries are. That permeability keeps the work expansive and nuanced, allowing it to take on a life beyond its domain and preventing it from becoming insular or self-referential. To me, that multiplicity is what makes a work interesting and, hopefully, more enduring in the world.
My greatest learnings when it comes to making money and supporting myself as a creative have been…
- Talking to trusted friends about the money we earn. This has been really helpful, especially when I didn’t know things like how much I should charge for a project or what salary I should expect from a job position.
- Saving money is an obvious one, but I think it’s really the most important. Learning to be somewhat frugal and save, quite aggressively I would add, gave me the kind of security I needed to do things like suddenly move to New York for work.
- On the same note, patience and learning to be content with not buying anything has also been extremely useful. I’m still getting better at this, but I have a general rule that I try to be strict about: if I see something I like that isn’t essential or immediately necessary (like rent and food), I wait until it’s discounted before deciding to buy it.
“If I don’t advocate for myself unconditionally, not many other people will… I have to have some degree of faith, as in belief beyond reason, in myself and my success.”
Advice
Best career-related advice I've ever received
If I don’t advocate for myself unconditionally, not many other people will. There’s definitely a risk of arrogance occasionally and I have to watch myself from crossing into that, but I do think that I have to have some degree of faith, as in belief beyond reason, in myself and my success, even if it means letting myself be just a tad delusional at times.
Where I go to feel connected as a creative
If I want to feel connected to a creative community, I see my friends who are also designers, artists, writers, and other creative people. If I want to feel connected to my own imagination, I either go to my Notes app or work on my personal projects.
What I'd say to someone looking to get into a similar role
I’m hardly qualified to answer this since I’ve never been on the other side of the hiring process. But I would start by focusing on what makes your work yours. I don’t mean making it different or novel just for the sake of novelty, but aligning what you make with how you see the world or want to see it. To me, that’s what it means to have a “voice” as a designer and that’s what ultimately makes your work singular.
It’s no secret that there are plenty of designers who are great by every technical standard, but I think it’s quite hard to create work that is lucid and true to what you actually believe. That requires interrogating those beliefs, which I think is just as difficult, if not more, than execution. It’s something I’m still figuring out myself.