Pham Quang Vinh (Zám Studio) and Gen Z's journey of creativity for the community

The Importance of Failure

While still a student, Pham Quang Vinh had time to collect prestigious awards such as D&AD New Blood Quickfire, Top 10 RMIT Student Leadership Awards 2021, Young Ones One Show 2022,... After graduating, Vinh became the co-author of the new brand identity for the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History. Not long after its launch, the "new museum shirt" went viral on social networks, was introduced on the Government Information page and was nominated for the 2024 WeChoice Awards for the Z Team category - Gen Z Talent Group. The Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History also recorded a significant increase in Gen Z visitors to the museum. Leaving his job at one of the world 's largest advertising corporations, Pham Quang Vinh and his colleagues founded Zám Studio and were selected to participate in the Earth Hour 2025 campaign and many other projects from the very beginning.

Pham Quang Vinh – the name behind those creative projects became more famous, noticed by brands and invited to be a speaker to share about creativity with students. However, few people know that Vinh’s success was built from many failures.

Studying Professional Communication at RMIT, Vinh participated in many competitions related to his major from the very beginning and was continuously eliminated. Vinh began to have many questions for himself: am I going in the wrong direction? Am I suitable for this industry? What am I lacking? It is worth noting that RMIT Vietnam has a tradition of winning prestigious competitions in the creative industry in Vietnam and internationally such as Young Lions, D&AD.

Vinh decided to continue competing, treating them as subjects with notes on what needed improvement. Vinh also consulted lecturers for professional feedback, broadened his thinking about the media world, and learned the art of storytelling to capture the attention of his audience. From there, awards started calling Vinh’s name and Vinh contributed to the long list of RMIT students winning prestigious awards.

As a Gen Z who loves to learn, in addition to their main job at the company, Vinh and his team still take on creative projects. Learning from work is the most effective way to learn, as Vinh experienced at RMIT - where doing projects based on business topics is a mandatory part of the learning process. One of the part-time projects that initially made a name for Vinh and his colleagues was the youthful, fresh and friendly "new look" for the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History.

Talking about the renovation of historical relics to make them tell interesting stories and easily attract Gen Z, someone said "The North has Hoa Lo, the South has the History Museum".

Zám Studio: from small projects to big roads

The success of the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History gave Vinh's group enough motivation and ambition to put aside their study abroad plans. With the desire to carry out more interesting projects, they decided to establish Zám with the meaning of "being Gen Z and daring to do something different". Vinh was able to "stamp" Zám on the application to participate in the WWF's Earth Hour 2025 campaign when the company was only established for 2 days.

Earth Hour is not new in Vietnam, but what WWF needs is to attract Gen Z to learn about and respond. Zam was chosen because of its approach to Gen Z with an understanding of psychology, language, and creative messaging, showing Gen Z that they are part of the story. "We have to research to understand the target customers, combine creative elements to attract their attention. This is the important thing when approaching Gen Z," Vinh said.

Earth Hour 2025 achieved great media success, including the effect on social media platforms managed by Zám.

Vinh and Zám are busier with more invitations from potential clients. Zám's clientele also expands from museums to companies and NGOs .

Vinh said he was lucky to spend his student years in an academic environment that values ​​creative freedom and helps students unleash their full creative potential. It is the RMIT environment that has helped Gen Z students of the Faculty of Design Communication like Vinh bring home more than 45 awards in the past 3 years alone, including top prizes at prestigious competitions.

For Vinh, "creativity has no limits". Together with Zam, Pham Quang Vinh chose to pursue his passion for creativity to bring positive changes to the community.

Pham Quang Vinh and his creative journey for the community