Tag Archives: Korea

Cases

Siwa, paper design by Naoto Fukasawa

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People have their own favorite designers. My favorite “product” designer is Naoto Fukasawa. He is well known for the designer of the fan-shaped CD player by Muji. I love his minimalist design so much that I flew for his Tokyo studio, Plus Minus Zero, to consider buying a humidifier for the stimulus of my experimental studies. Interestingly, he once worked with Samsung to design its printer.

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Johnny @ Spoon & Tamago

 

Recently, I found his name on an unexpected place. I visited a small store called studio M nearby my house. It sells his paper (or seemingly half-paper-half-leather) products named SIWA. Soon I realized that his design philosophy seems to match low-tech products (e.g., pencil cases and hand bags) more successfully than electronic gadgets (e.g., CD players, humidifiers, and printers), differently from Dieter Rams. “Some” Minimalist design principles may work better for “some” materials or “some” products. 🙂

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Cases

Rooftop presentation of Seoul history

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I attended an interesting event at the Art center Nabi in Seoul. At this event, Robert Fouser, Associate Professor of Korean Language Education at Seoul National University, introduced the history of Seoul with a series of his own black and white photos of Seoul. His Korean-speaking presentation impressed me deeply; his photos remind me of my own student life (e.g., highways and Soju bottles).

More importantly, I noticed from his presentation that he love Seoul and spend much time on discovering my home town, while I pay attention to my second home town, Toronto. Thanks to his presentation, I came to open my third eye and, academically speaking, be mindful to enjoy the present moments in this city. Making familiar things unfamiliar will be the biggest role that artistic events could do to us.

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I also learned that the Art center Nabi is worth visiting; it is located at the center of Seoul and had a 15 year history for supporting artists. The website says,

“Art Center Nabi aims to act as an intermediary that transforms the cultural desires into vital activities. Our goal is formed around the idea of humanizing technology that technology is fully integrated with human’s cultural life to open a new space for creative practices. This can be achieved only after the fruitful collaboration and understanding among science technology, humanities and arts. Thus, Art Center Nabi maintains the following three ideas; being a ‘critique’ of contemporary culture independent from technological benefits; possessing ‘creativity’ which opens people’s mind to regard a new perspective and enables a new form of expression; creating ‘community’ where these ideas are shared and the new world is dreamed of. Art Center Nabi is at the center of this new culture, where artistic sensibility is combined with the technological possibility to bring out the power of change and creativity.”

 

Cases

Hanjin Shipping, the box project

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MMCA (national Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) is a representative museum located in the center of Seoul, Korea. In the museum stood an eye-popping art piece. It is “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” and sponsored by Hanjin Shipping, the 8th biggest shipping company following Maersk, MSC, and CMA-CGM. Probably, it will take ages for a shipping company to obtain some artistic flavor. However, its effort will be paid off in the long run. Even a financial company such as Hyundai Card goes with musicians and support creative talents.

 

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… Hanjin Shipping The Box Project is an MMCA’s ambitious project through which Seoul Box is accoutered with artists’ ingenious and stimulating ideas. MMCA has selected Do Ho Suh (1962- ) as the protagonist for the Project’s first chapter held in celebration of the historic opening of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea’s Seoul Branch…

This huge fabric installation of Suh entitled ‘Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home’ is specially created to epitomize the vital spatial property of Seoul Box that can be undeniably characterized by its abundant natural light coming through its glass walls and the historical attribute of the Seoul branch’s compound in which traditional, modern and contemporary buildings embrace each other…

This work is comprised of a life-size (12 meters in height, 15 meters in width) replica of the three-story town house at Providence, Rhode Island, which was the artist’s first residence where he lived as a student in the United States in 1991 and ‘Seoul Home,’ a reproduction of his family’s traditional-style Korean house in Seoul, hanging in the middle of the former…

As one can infer from the title, the work elucidates and conjures the ever-expanding concept of space: traditional Korean house within Western-style house; Western-style house with Seoul Box; Seoul Box within the Seoul branch; the Seoul branch within Seoul… (written by Chuyoung Lee, Associate Curator. Click here for the complete introduction)

 

 

Cases

Studying materials for design

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Materials matter. Designers use biological materials to solve trade-off problems (e.g., strong and light-weighted chair). Consumers buy transparent products. When students join the Master of Product Design and Development program in the Segal Design Institute, Northwestern University, they should take Materials Selection course in the beginning before learning about accounting, negotiation, strategy, decision making, and market research.

In the DDP, Seoul Korea, I met a section dedicated for materials. I saw the same section when I visited TCDC, Thailand Creativity and Design Center. I expect the material section enable general public to develop the knowledge about and the taste of different materials so that they think more creatively.

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Cases

Ski lift ticket: Canada vs. Korea

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At the Gleneden ski resort, lift tickets (above) contain full information only on one side. Date, type, and bar-code number are above and the legal notice is in the bottom. Then, skiers fold the other half of the lift ticket over so the sticky sides stick together over the wicket. 

Interestingly, at the Yong pyong ski resort, one of the biggest ski resorts in Korea, lift tickets (below) contain information on the front as well as the back side. Instead of using sticky glue and wicket, skiers simply use plastic to attach it to their ski wears. Yongpyong resort seems to deliver more detailed information to its skiers by changing the design of the lift ticket; date, type, hour, price, and tax information are printed in the front side, and usage information, notice, emergency contact, and resort phone number are printed in the back.

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