Gina Rattanakone

About Me

Hi I’m Gina, a Lao-American illustrator and designer! I love experimenting with film studies and integrating them in my work. As a result, motion graphics and visual storytelling are where my heart lies. Food is my love language, and so are all things cottagecore. My dream is to design the ending credits scene of a movie!

Project Description

Food illustrations are the cave paintings of cuisine. Sabaidee Chef is a digital cookbook designed to share Lao recipes from my family to yours. Each recipe is captured in 2D illustrations rather than conventional photography, and pays homage to the Southeast Asian culture.

What is one piece of advice you would provide to new ATEC students?

Congrats, new students! You’re going to learn so much here at ATEC and be creatively challenged inside and out of class. There will be times when you are artistically frustrated throughout your education, but don’t let that discourage you. When you find yourself not enjoying the things you used to do, it’s not a loss of passion, but rather the fact that you’re overworked. Take the time to heal and recover, fix your schedule, pick up other skills in the meantime, and you’ll find yourself coming back to it once more. Work hard, but make sure you enjoy the work that you do!

What’s your favorite memory of ATEC?

It’s a very vague memory, but have you ever been in ATEC past closing hours? I think we were planning events and meetings for our student organization, but we didn’t notice the time (we were often scheming in a secluded part of the building). What I loved was the collective dedication each person put into a project or vision, and spending those late-nights in the building with friends and colleagues is the greatest feeling of camaraderie.