An interview with Midnight MUG’s latest logo designer: Jinwoo Chong
By: Gigi Grimes
Photos By: Mollie Coyle
Jinwoo Chong, Midnight MUG’s new logo designer, has left his imprint on the Georgetown community and he basically stumbled upon it. As an English major in the college (2017), Jinwoo didn’t get involved in photography or graphic design until he came to Georgetown. “Everyone at my high school was really good with art so I just stuck to writing” explained Jiwoo. Starting out with photographs for his a capella group, the Phantoms, he quickly realized he had a talent as more friends and groups asked him to photograph and design for them. Soon after when he was hired to the marketing team at The Corp, Jinwoo expanded his skill set designing Facebook banners and flyers for them. When Midnight approached him about designing the new logo, he quickly agreed and began submitting different designs. To his surprise and pleasure when he returned to Georgetown in August he saw his designed painted on the wall of Midnight, solidifying his impact on the organization.
Though Jinwoo is a member of The Corp’s marketing team he doesn’t derive much of his inspiration from marketing designs. “I don’t really like to draw inspiration from other peoples marketing work because marketing is about targeting people not the art,” said Jinwoo, “I’m more visual so I love Pinterest. If I see something on there that I like I try to incorporate it into my designs.” The inspiration for the new Midnight logo did not draw from these sources, however. The Corp team wanted the logo to be similar but revamped, which Jinwoo claimed made it “really difficult because they wanted the same design just cleaner and simpler.” In true Corp fashion, the design wasn’t made in a super fancy studio. “I actually made the chosen design in bed in my pajamas” explained Jinwoo laughing.
Outside of working with The Corp, Jinwoo has several projects going on at Georgetown. With his two art classes Photo 3 and Graphic Design he “has a lot of freedom as to what [he] can create.” Currently he’s working on an alphabet book where he is “finding letters in the world and using adobe to isolate the letter and publish it in the book.” Additionally, he’s branching out into the beauty side of photography, shooting the AePi “Nice Jewish Boys” calendar.
So next time you’re doing work on Lau 2 at 1am and looking for a reason to go to bed, stop in to Midnight MUG, look at Jinwoo’s design and just think—if he made this design from the comfort of his pajamas, you can ace your IR exam from there too.
Thirty Seventh 