HaiHa Dang is an award-winning Creative Director, Motion Designer for multiple mediums, including commercial, broadcast design and print. With a strong passion and a unique visual style, he quickly gained recognition among the industry.
How many years have you been a judge?
5+ years
What excited you about judging for the Telly Awards?
What excites me most about judging for the Telly Awards is the full-circle nature of the experience. I’ve been following and participating in the awards since 2018, both as an entrant and as part of teams pushing creative boundaries. It was incredibly rewarding to win personally, and later to lead the creative team at Balance to multiple wins.
Now, stepping into the role of a judge feels like a natural progression. I’m excited to contribute back to a platform that has consistently celebrated bold, innovative work, and to help recognize the next wave of creative talent shaping our industry.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
I started my career as a motion graphics designer at Mojo in Singapore — it feels like a lifetime ago, but it really shaped the foundation of how I work today.
Beyond developing my technical skills, that experience taught me how ideas come together in a real-world setting — from understanding briefs and collaborating with a team, to presenting work and managing client expectations.
I also learned a lot from the people around me, especially my line manager, Josef, who guided me early on and helped me build a strong sense of discipline and clarity in my creative thinking.
What project are you most proud to have worked on?
One project I’m particularly proud to have worked on is our collaboration with Jack Morton for Netflix on Yu Yu Hakusho.
It was a rewarding experience because of the level of collaboration involved — working across different teams, markets, and disciplines to bring a well-known title to life in a way that felt both relevant and engaging. Balancing creative ambition with practical execution was a big part of the process, and it required a lot of alignment at every stage.
What I appreciate most about this project is how the core idea remained clear throughout, while each layer of craft helped elevate it. It’s a good example, for me, of how strong concepts and collaborative teamwork can come together to create work that feels considered and impactful.
https://www.balancestudio.tv/netflix-yu-yu-hakusho
What’s the most challenging part about your job and/or the industry?
One of the most challenging aspects of this role — and the industry as a whole — is maintaining both personal clarity and professional relevance over time.
Creative work is deeply human and emotional, which means your state of mind directly affects the quality of your thinking and decision-making. Learning how to manage that — to stay focused, objective, and clear even under pressure — is an ongoing discipline.
At the same time, the industry evolves constantly. Staying relevant isn’t just about picking up new tools or trends, but about continuously understanding shifts in culture, technology, and audience behavior — and knowing how to respond to them with intention. It requires a balance between staying open and adaptive, while still holding on to a strong point of view.
What do you look for to determine excellence in video?
I’m always drawn to the strength of the core concept. A video doesn’t need to rely on heavy effects or visual spectacle to make an impact — in fact, the simplest ideas often resonate the most.
What matters is whether the idea is clear, purposeful, and delivered in a way that connects with the right audience at the right time. If the foundation is strong, the craft becomes a tool to elevate it, not define it.
What are your current roles and responsibilities and what do you love most about your job?
At Balance, my role is to connect ideas to execution. I lead the creative direction across the group, working with clients to solve problems through our creative services while guiding teams to bring those ideas to life.
I operate right in the middle of concept and craft — shaping the vision, but also making sure it’s practical, clear, and deliverable. I also spend a lot of time mentoring and supporting other creatives to help elevate the overall output.
What I enjoy most is being part of the full creative process — seeing something start as a simple idea and evolve into work that has real impact in the world.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
While I’m not able to share much about current projects due to confidentiality, one initiative that truly excites me is leading our creative video podcast, Pure Now, at Balance.
Pure Now is a platform where we’ve interviewed over 30 creatives from around the world, exploring their perspectives, processes, and experiences. What makes it meaningful for me is the opportunity to capture that collective knowledge and share it back with the wider creative community.
We see it as a way of giving back — a creative exchange that goes beyond projects and contributes to the growth of the industry as a whole.
https://www.balancestudio.tv/purenow
Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?
I don’t think creativity comes from a single moment of inspiration — it’s more about building the right conditions for it to happen.
For me, that starts with staying curious. I try to constantly expose myself to different inputs — not just within the industry, but across culture, design, technology, and everyday life. A lot of ideas come from connecting dots between things that don’t seem related at first.
I also value stepping back. Giving myself space to think, reflect, and reset helps keep my perspective clear. And finally, conversations play a big role — exchanging ideas with other creatives often sparks new ways of seeing a problem.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
For me, it really started with a specific project — the MSN Talk “Butterflies” piece by Ash Bolland at Umeric. I came across it almost 16 years ago, and it completely changed how I saw design and creative work.
It wasn’t just about aesthetics — it was the way the idea, technology, and storytelling came together so seamlessly. That project opened my eyes to what creative work could be, and it played a big role in pushing me toward this career.
Later on, I even had the chance to meet the Technical Director, Tim Clapham, at Pause Fest, which made that moment of inspiration feel even more meaningful.
In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?
One significant shift I’m seeing is the acceleration of how content is created, distributed, and consumed — largely driven by technology and changing audience behavior. The line between formats is becoming increasingly blurred, and there’s a growing expectation for content to be both fast and high-quality at the same time.
At the same time, tools — especially AI — are making production more accessible, which is raising the overall volume of content dramatically.
The key to navigating this, in my view, is to focus on what doesn’t change: strong ideas and clear intent. While tools and formats will continue to evolve, the ability to craft a meaningful concept that connects with an audience remains constant. It’s about using new technologies as enablers, not relying on them as the idea itself.
