Billy Potts is a Hong Kong-born designer and writer whose work is rooted in the city’s heritage and visual culture. As Partner and Creative Director at Steiner&Co., he focuses on cross-cultural communication through design. Potts’s work bridges design, heritage, and cultural memory, offering perspectives on how Hong Kong’s visual past shapes its present and future.
Potts’ work deals with Hong Kong’s culture as expressed through its folk traditions. Over the past decade he has been documenting and researching ligation arts, the craft of tying bamboo with paper to form the elaborate dragons, lions and other devotional items through which Hong Kong has transmitted culture globally via the Chinese diaspora.
Also known for co-founding Hong Kong Ghost Signs, a multimedia exploration of the city’s past through fading commercial signage and graphic traces that mark the lives of people long gone, Potts’ work has been supported by the Design Trust and Lord Wilson Heritage Trust. His practice now spans graphic design, visual identity, and cultural storytelling for iconic local brands including Camel Vacuum Flasks, Hong Kong Tramways, Ascot Chang and Cathay Pacific. Since 2013, he has designed and built three of Hong Kong’s iconic double-decker trams.
Potts’ writing appears regularly in Colima CityMag and the South China Morning Post. He is co-author of Zolima Culture Guide Vol 1: Henry Steiner’s Hong Kong and author of the forthcoming book, Hong Kong Ghost Signs.