Meet the Founder of Bridge Creations, Nhat Tran
Nhat Tran is the founder of Bridge Creations, a design agency based in Canberra, Australia. Bridge Creations provides graphic design services in the health and well-being industry, assisting entrepreneurs, health service providers, and care workers.
Entering its first anniversary, Bridge Creations has worked alongside start-up businesses of a health parlour, inclusion service, music-language education, and health technology. The work contributed to brand awareness, market entry, product development, and promoting services.
For more details, visit their website here.
Here we sit down with Nhat to learn more about his journey as an entrepreneur.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur — how did you get started? What inspired you?
Nhat: I started this business following a project while studying for a Master of Design Strategies at the University of Canberra. In 2019, a project involved creating a solution for childhood obesity. The solution applied icons and altered words in a set of booklets to make the communication of health facts more engaging and convincing.
The project packaged ongoing issues of childhood obesity, prevention strategies, and health benefits of physical activity. My colleagues praised the project and it was even published in a journal article, Service Design Thinking for Social Good. The article analysed the project to discuss why graphic design is required for health and I didn’t want to let the project come to waste. I expanded the idea a year later as a business incubator. I then took part in a workshop with an innovation network in Canberra to understand the process of promoting health with visuals, using a pilot study with university students to motivate exercise.
But I needed a reason as to why I am pursuing this venture and I noticed that health has always been a part of my life. Since I was 12 years old, I grew a love for sports, being known as one of the biggest rugby union fanatics in Canberra, Australia.
While playing, I dealt with racism, schoolyard bullying, and cyberbullying, I was going through constant anxiety in most of my teenage years, I lost my joy for rugby, could not focus on school and felt isolated. I made multiple mistakes by letting the small issues grow, not forgiving myself for my mistakes, never speaking up to peers, acting as if the issues never happened in the first place, and pretending as if I never knew about the troubles. But there was hope finishing high school, as I grew a connection with the school to this day, improved my health, and regained my love for rugby.
But years later history repeated itself, where for 4 years I was the number 1 victim of a toxic workplace and similar experiences came back more severe. Looking back, I felt that the background is a perfect fit for starting the business to combine my skills in graphic design and health journey to see society exit the experiences that I went through.
Q. What are your long-term goals in business? Paint a vision for the future
Nhat: My long-term goal is to partner with start-ups and health businesses to assist with graphic design, communication strategies, and market entry plans. My services involve developing visual collateral and providing consultations for health-related graphic design work.
I hope to assist with visual communication needs to promote innovative ideas, tell stories about new solutions, educate about the need for healthy living, and spread awareness of health risks.
Living in a society that is proactive in visual learning, I envision society investing in services and products to understand how these solutions assist everyday living and are conscious of health problems thanks to visual collateral.
Q. What motivates you?
Nhat: Sports and music motivate my work focus and personal life. I spend my weekends in various rugby roles to give back to the community and use outcomes as confidence knowing I helped others and myself.
I find the outcome rewarding to take part in volunteer roles and it gives me relief to see a smile on someone’s face or a thank you from a community member.
For music, I take a leaf out of a teenage actress’s book of songwriting and playlists as therapy. Sadly, I don’t have the skills to produce music :(. Instead, for various reasons, I listen to songs involving emotions and dig into the context to bring out troubles in my mind, help me learn from mistakes, and move on from past issues.
Q. What business-related book has inspired you the most, or, what is your favourite book?
Nhat: This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases by Marc Stickdorn, and Jakob Schneider.
Q. What strategies do you use to optimise your performance or mindset?
Nhat: Research is my favourite strategy for performance to help gain clients, I display research through case studies and social media to demonstrate captured value. I explore what value my services create for the client when the content is launched, examples include sales, client satisfaction, public awareness, and feedback.
For instance, I redesigned a logo for a health technology business in early 2022. After launching, I recognised an increase in promotional content for sales, a higher rate of traffic for the client, an improved brand image to engage buyers and the logo even featured on the news!
To optimise my mindset, especially for running the business I go down memory lane. As hard as it is to recall bad memories, it helps me focus to keep my business growing to know why I am here in the first place. After all, entrepreneurs aim to improve the world because of motivation.
I use this strategy as a story for clients that I understand their end user’s health pain points, having gone through a similar experience. I apply this to elevator pitches, proposals, communication platforms, and write-ups to help generate leads, convince clients and share my big vision.
Q. If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
Nhat: Rubber band: Holding together health, identities, and careers.
Q. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
Nhat: My favourite investment is with monday.com, I use the platform to assist with business operations, note-taking, design projects, client briefing, expenses, admin tasks, and project management.
Q. Where do you see the future in your niche/industry 3–5 years from now?
Nhat: In the future, I see my services applied to growing start-up businesses and health service providers to thoughtfully manage graphic design plans. I noticed that society and the general market view graphic design as making ideas look nice and pretty, yet it provides so many benefits.
I see my services in assisting with various communication strategies to engage society, educate the world, and influence decision-making. I see visual collateral applied everywhere in physical destinations, resources, social media, digital communications, and other settings to promote messages, stories, or meanings to see a reduction in health issues.
Q. What is your ‘one-sentence’ piece of advice you’d like to give to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, coach, or business owner?
Nhat: By communicating you can create so many benefits to testing assumptions, earning customers, attracting leads, and getting referrals.
To keep up to date with Nhat and his journey, connect with him on LinkedIn.
