Meet Wilson Chung

Today we’d like to introduce you to Wilson Chung.

Hi Wilson, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today. 
I’m born in Los Angeles, California. I studied and work as Radio Frequency engineer and a self-taught graphic designer. I had a lot of training and taken a lot of art classes growing up and was really good at it. I ended up decided to pursuit engineering as it is a more sustaining career choice. Much later into the career I decided to looking into the side hustle of possibly getting out of the 9 to 5 rat race. Being always interested into fashion design and art, I decided to get in touch of my old hobby: Art. Some of the initial inspiration was literally from my closet; I own dozens of cool graphic design T-shirts and designer pieces that look like out of a Sci-Fi and Cyberpunk movie and video game costumes. Using it as some of the inspiration, which then I started using computer graphic design tools for the very first time. I then decided to apply some of the engineering principles, to start small, proof that it works, then build on it, which leads to me trying to sell designs on platforms like Redbubble, proof that it works, then move on to starting my the brand Neurolab Apparel as the retail website around November 2019. I specifically remember that month clearly because it was the month of the original Blade Runner was set in and I gave myself the deadline to get the website started. And another part of motivation was Blade Runner being set in the dystopian cyberpunk of Los Angeles, was exactly the theme of the clothing line will be. A lot of Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk-inspired graphic tees and accessories. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It was not smooth road at all. The challenge of me being a self-taught graphic designer, additionally having to learn how to run the business by myself post a lot of challenges. The challenge as a graphic designer is to being able to translate my vision to a computer graphics. Being self-taught, there’s a lot of countless hours on learning on How To videos on YouTube, it’s much different than doing graphics on sketch which is something I’m familiar with since a young age. I was always one of the top students in the afterschool art programs back when I was growing up. Now, taking away all the conventional art tools to digital art tools pose a challenge. It’s a lot of learning curve, which I have it figure out, but I’m still learning every day. 

The second biggest challenge is doing business without a physical storefront, known as E-Commerce. Not having a physical storefront means people won’t just happen to walk into the store to window shop or to even purchase items. The challenge with E-Commerce is that the sales tend to be online advertisement and social media driven, which is a challenge to drive traffic to my website. Which again is also a big learning curve. 

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As a printed graphics brand, I feel like I’ve reached somewhat a limitation to what I can do with just graphics. Back to the engineering principle of start small and build on it, proven that graphic tees and printed garments sells well, the next step will be having actual designer pieces with special and unique fabric cuts and styling. My goal is to create special clothing styles that make one feels and looks like the main character in the movie/ videogame. 

How do you define success?
I feel like this one is a hard question to answer. I’ve always have the feel that I can always improve myself over and over again, and never stops. As a business owner, I would say to define success for brand is where it becomes self-sustainable and is no longer a side hustle and is now my main job. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.neurolabapparel.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neurolab_apparel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neurolabapparel