Nguyên Lâm (Anya)
currently at Chicago, IL


studio hymns

A design studio in Chicago dedicated to create inclusive, human-centered design that spark connections and balance.



Year:
Role:
Tools:
Credits:
Duration: 2025
Creative Lead & Graphic Designer
Illustrator, Photoshop, Procreate, After Effects
Hailey Blair, Myrlyn Duong, Stephanie Wiiliams
14 weeks Art Direction, Identity, Print & Digital Design, Illustration

hymns makes up of four members: Hailey Blair, Myrlyn Duong, Nguyen Lam and Stephanie Williams.  Our mantra is to create inclusive, human-centered design that spark connections and balance. 

Together, we aim to build a design studio that operates as a nimble, collaborative team built to manage everything from initial visual discovery to final product launch, including fabrication and product testing.

Over 14 weeks, we built hymns from the ground up—from initial studio branding and market research to product design. Our journey culminated in debuting a physical prototype at the UIC 2025 Year End Show.



studio hymns embraces an analog, hand-drawn aesthetic, rooted in the belief that creating by hand is the purest way to design for people.

A stop-motion vine grows into the letter H, playfully foreshadowing studio hymns creative direction and hinting at the first launch product.


Our five-color palette is rooted directly in our core values: Passion, Harmony, Playfulness, and Inclusivity. We use Hearth and Amity to cultivate an atmospheric sense of warmth and friendliness, while Pivot, Shift, and Canvas infuse the identity with dynamic vitality and growth.

To complement this palette, Josefin Sans was selected as our primary typeface along with the analog handrawn logo. Its solid geometric structure and friendly sans-serif style deliver exceptional readability across all touchpoints. from small stationery to large-scale marketing collaterals.




hymns of jasmine

Beginner-friendly plant growing kit that fills a market gap by being functional, easy to understand, and beautifully designed.





Problem
  • Beginner plant owners struggle with containment and cleanliness during the transfer phase.
  • Lack of guidance on how to source new pots or responsibly repurpose old ones.
  • Frustration with maintaining non-edible foliage that yields no consumable benefit.
  • Care instructions are scattered, physically bulky, and difficult to keep up with over time.







Our inaugural launch features Jasmine Sambac: a botanical chosen for its sensory depth and alignment with our core values of harmony and hope. 






Solution

  • Plant choice: Jasmine Sambac, giving beginners the option to harvest for tea or simply enjoy visually without the pressure of consumption.
  • Includes three pots color-matched to an instructional flyer to establish a clear information hierarchy.
  • Delivers space-saving, foldable instructions featuring a QR code for quick digital redownloading if the physical copy is lost.
  • Integrates hand-drawn, linocut illustrations vectorized in Adobe Illustrator to mirror the exact creative process of hymns' logo.
  • Incorporates a structured trellis to keep users engaged, grounded, and motivated as they watch their plant grow.









hymns of jasmine’s instruction pamphlet.
11x17, double-sided on glossy paper, each section is defined with a cut of approximately 5.5 inches, allowing the phamplet to be folded for space saving.