From felt ear trumpets to cards for Korean alternative Valentine’s Days, this newly graduated designer has a playful approach inspired by weird and wonderful customs she comes across in her research.
Describe your style in three words.
Playful, simple, wry.
Tell us about your South Korean Love Postcards project.
There are twelve unofficial holidays in South Korea born out of a relatively new and heavily commercialised Valentine's Day celebration in the East. Each month there is one day to exchange feelings and tokens of love, with the one exception being 'Black Day' on 14 April, which is a day for singles to wallow in their loneliness together eating Jjajangmyeon (black noodles). The younger generations celebrate each of these holidays with gusto – celebrations that are being increasingly encouraged by teams of shrewd marketers. The humour of these holidays appealed to me, and so I designed a set of twelve postcards that celebrate love in the country. 14 May, or ‘Yellow Day', is a whole day set aside to wearing coordinated yellow outfits, while 14 Septemberis officially 'Music Day', dedicated to listening to music and singing at karaoke bars. Hug Day, on 14 December, falls at the end of the year, when seemingly they had run out of ideas and dedicated a day to the humble hug. As people increasingly tend to ignore Valentine's Day in the west, I wanted to shed light on these strange and unknown holidays, which are so enthusiastically embraced in South Korea. Hopefully it’s brought new life and a little humour to the often tired out and repetitive Valentine's Day cards.
What kind of projects particularly inspire you?
I like to keep my work quite light-hearted. I think I'm drawn to anything that makes me laugh, but also topics that provoke curiosity. I get excited if I discover something I've never heard of before, something new and peculiar, and this excitement is usually enough to inspire and motivate me through a project.
Talk us through your creative process.
I do most of my thinking in my sketchbook. It has become the place I draw out ideas, write and produce final images. In between projects, my sketchbooks stay with me and I've learnt not to be to precious with them. I think this way of working has helped me develop a consistency with my work and also helps me out when I'm stuck – I have a growing stock of drawings or a note of something I found interesting some time ago.
Who would be a dream client?
I'm not sure who I'd like to work with, but have been thinking about what i'd like to do. I want a project to take me off Photoshop and away from the computer screen. At the moment that's all I know, but perhaps textiles or redesigning a uniform or costumes for a theatre troupe would fit this brief. The project of my dreams is to build a huge, wooden painted bridge. Maybe I'll start with a scale model.
