When Anh Phoong — known for her iconic “Something Wrong? Call Anh Phoong” billboards — posted a billboard design contest on social media, she wasn’t expecting to receive backlash from her community for what some called an attempt to get cheap art.
Phoong said she created the competition to give people an opportunity to showcase their artwork and have them featured on billboards in places like Sacramento and San Francisco.
“That was my intention, to maybe catapult someone’s work,” she told CapRadio on Wednesday.
However, some artists and graphic designers argued the cash prizes she was offering were too low while others accused the injury attorney of trying to find cheap labor.
“Right now, there’s a lot of comments on articles saying, ‘Why is the price so low, it should be $5,000,’” she said. “I’m not trying to get one over on anyone. I feel like I’ve offended people in the art and graphic design world. It’s not like that at all.”
On Monday, Phoong announced the competition through a since-deleted Instagram post listing the prizes for First, Second and Third places — $500, $300 and $150, respectively.
After the backlash, Phoong deleted her original post and uploaded a new one Wednesday afternoon with one grand prize of $5,000.
A poster for Ahn Phoong's billboard design contest.(Courtesy)
“After taking your comments into consideration, we’ve decided to increase the prize to $5,000,” the post stated. “Our goal is to celebrate your talent and give back to our community in a meaningful way. We’re so excited to see the amazing designs you continue to create.”
Phoong also moved the deadline from Feb. 10 to Feb. 12 and invited people to create and submit their unique designs to her website by then.
Billboard icon
Although she’s become a staple along highways in Sacramento, the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Phoong said she was afraid of the backlash she might’ve received when she started advertising on billboards nearly a decade ago.
“Would I be perceived as someone that was professional enough?” Phoong wondered. “Did they think I would be a hungry shark attorney? Or are there people going to be like, ‘No, she can’t be good,’ or ‘She’s a minority,’ or ‘She’s a female, and that’s not what our normal idea of what we’ve been seeing in our community of lawyers.’”
Phoong said she’s happy she took that leap and is humbled by the amount of attention and support they led to. She’s received letters and messages from young girls in the community who say she’s inspired them.
“I’ll get calls from people that say, ‘I didn’t even get into an accident, I don’t need advice,’” Phoong said. “‘I just want Anh to know that she’s made me want to go to law school, or she’s helped me realize my worth.’
“That’s kind of why I wanted to do something like this, and why I do stuff like this in general,” she added. “To give back to the community because the community has been so good to me.”
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