This post shows both the rejected and the final designs for an exhibition titled Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in North America, held in 2024 in the National Museum of Korea.

Design studio Everyday Practice (Joonho Kwon and Minjae Lim) wanted to visualise the Native Americans who dreamed of harmony with nature, the gods, and their neighbours, based on their arts and crafts. From the Monthly Design special issue ‘Why Did That Design Get Rejected?’:

We drew on their dress and jewellery to derive symbolic forms and common patterns, which were then rearranged and reassembled in a collage approach to reveal the identity of the exhibition. The poster is inspired by their costumes, with small particles reminiscent of intricately woven textile textures, creating visual interest.

However, due to the nature of the National Museum of Korea as a public institution that is visited by an unspecified number of people, the final design was decided to be a design that directly reflects the artefacts themselves, rather than a design that transforms the shape of the exhibits. Although we were unable to apply the multi-layered graphics and detailing that we had hoped to achieve in the original design, we were able to develop graphic elements based on constellation motifs that were subsequently placed efficiently in the exhibition space.

The Korean title lettering was designed by Tearong Kim and Minjae Lim.

Side by side: the rejected proposal (left) and one of the final designs on the right.

Published by ArtAsiaPacific and Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS), Extreme Beauty: 12 Korean Artists Today features the work of twelve contemporary Korean artists and their unique styles and approaches to making art. This volume is the first of a yearly series by the same publishers and to-date always designed by the creative studio Barnbrook: Accelerating Realities (2023), Contingent Worlds (2024), Hidden Realms (2025).

From Barnbrook studio's Instagram post:

Our design approach experiments with an extremist typography style that aims to synthesize the new by crossbreeding legible and experimental fonts. This approach brings intensity to the design, particularly in the repeated words on the names of the featured artists, which benefits from the dynamism of brush stroke gestures. We balance this experimental typography with a clean and legible style for the body text, which includes generous space for featuring the work. We also highlight the work titles in the text using an inbuilt underline function of the font, which merges all descending characters to create unconventional letter shapes. Finally, we use red as a representative color for Korea, but also to evoke danger, courage, and passion in the design context.

The book title is prominently featured at the center of the cover and set in Swiss Typefaces’ Black Mamba. The title showcases all the peculiar features of the typeface, from the arabesques, to the bold uppercase and light caps alternates in the lowercase slots. Black Mamba also appears throughout the interior, notably in the index and for the artists’ names, where it is applied with horizontal repetition to create a brushstroke-like effect. Accompanying Black Mamba in the titles is NaumType’s Base&Bloom, while Dinamo’s ABC Favorit is used for the body text. A special detail is the use of Swiss Typefaces’ Vogy Smog for the X on the page after the flyleaf, before the colophon and title page. The same glyph reappears in the index to vertically spell out the book title.

Other typefaces used in this volume for the multilingual parts are Source Han Sans and Cairo. The latter is not shown in the included images.

The ArtAsiaPacific logotype (not part of the book design) is set in Tiempos.

春莺舞 is set in Source Han Sans.

From design studio Everyday Practice:

Aqua Paradiso, hosted by the Asia Culture Center, is an exhibition that imagines a positive future through life, birth, healing, regeneration, and recovery under the theme of ocean and ecology.

Everyday Practice has tried to visualize the concept of healing and recovery of water in a mythical/religious sense. We designed the key visual by borrowing the phenomenon of anthropocene and the landscape of climate crisis that it causes as a graphic motif.

The title is composed of Voyage and Neue Haas Grotesk Display. Voyage is also used in the interior, paired with GT America, Sandoll GothicNeo and Suisse Works.

BST Symbol Regular was used for the logotype of World Affair, an exhibition presented by 피크닉 piknic, a multidisciplinary cultural space in Seoul that combines exhibitions, design, food, retail, and public programming within a carefully curated urban environment.

Dedicated to the work of COMPANY, a Helsinki-based design studio founded in 2000 by Korean-born Aamu Song and Finnish designer Johan Olin, the exhibition traces more than two decades of collaborations with artisans and makers around the world. The exhibition identity was designed by piknic’s creative team. The Korean font is yet unidentified.

The bottom line in this poster uses the brand typeface from Piknic: SangBleu Empire from Swiss Typefaces

A landscape built in ASCII.
Keystrokes gather into a castle, a stage, a system.

Called Pieces is the title of an art show by Com, held in 2024 in Walkie-Talkie Gallery in Seoul, South Korea. The graphics of this poster series are not drawn but typed. Every element – the “COM” logo, the ramparts, the stage grid – is ASCII text entered one character at a time. Drag any part of the poster PDF and it copies as text. Typography here is not representation but medium: a cipher, a loading screen, a curtain. The image is the text, and the text can be called anywhere to come alive again.

This poster exists only as text. Drag it, and it becomes code.
Paste it, and it becomes a poster again.

The QR-code leads to a complementary playlist on YouTube.

In fall 2025, South Korea’s representative rock band YB embarked on a nationwide tour titled YB REMASTERED 3.0: Transcendent, commemorating its 30th anniversary and presenting their latest album, Odyssey.

Design by Sujin Kim and Eungi Min of Triangle Studio, with art direction from Kisung Jang. The fonts used are Sinistre (Collletttivo), DGM Fette (Giulia Boggio), and an unidentified sans.

Coqodaq is a New York restaurant by Simon Kim and Gracious Hospitality Management that reimagines Korean fried chicken as a fine-dining experience. Designed by Emily Oberman and the Pentagram team, the identity draws from the visual language of Korean and American chicken joints, then elevates it into something more luxurious, playful, and precise.

Typography plays a central role in balancing these tones. The brand pairs the expressive custom Coqodaq logotype (inspired by Lucky?) with a rich supporting type system that combines EK Notice Classic, EK Notice Decor – designed by Erkin Karamemet – and Plaak by 205TF. The center O in the logo contains the Korean character 닭 (“chicken”).

EK Notice appears in Classic Regular, Classic Medium, and Decor Medium, bringing a distinctive mix of historical reference, contrast, and display character to menus, messaging, packaging, and environmental graphics. Its Florentine-inspired sans-serif structure and subtly decorative qualities help bridge the restaurant’s indulgent, high-design atmosphere with the witty, approachable language of a chicken joint.

The typography is carried across the restaurant’s full experience, from printed and digital menus to takeout packaging, signage, social media animations, and interior details.
Alongside EK Notice, Plaak 26 Light, 36 Regular, 46 Bold, and 56 Heavy provide a strong, compact typographic counterpoint. The combination gives the identity both elegance and impact: Notice contributes texture, contrast, and personality, while Plaak supports the system with confident hierarchy and graphic clarity.

Albra Sans by Rellence is used for Fossula, a skincare brand from Korea that develops new ingredients and formulas based on extensive skincare experience. It was launched in September 2020.

The brand identity design and font selection were executed by Seoul-based design studio HuskyFox. Plus X were in charge of developing the website.

The supporting typeface for small English text is Benton Sans. The Fossula website (no longer online) additionally used Noto Sans KR, see Source Han Sans.

The Echidna Zine is an ode to the echidna, an egg-laying mammal. The zine was published by Seoul-based creative studio and artist Hyper Pension in March 2026.

One of the most notable aspects of the zine is that it was produced using a range of techniques, including rubber stamping, manuscript, and cyanotype. The zine was produced in a limited edition of 30 copies and was first presented at the art book/zine fair OFFCUT SEOUL 2026.

“Happy Echidna Sanctuary” on the title page is set in P22 Operina, enriched by its lavish ornamental alternate glyphs. The alternate glyphs in Operina are sometimes seven to eight times wider or taller than the lowercase letters, giving the setting an exceptionally decorative character. They bring a sense of abundance, elegance, and playfulness to the page.

The title page was printed on Sheepskin paper (140 g/m²) by Doosung Paper, a contemporary reinterpretation of parchment. The rubber-stamped yellow tag is also typeset in Operina.

The widest page is a manuscript, created with brush and ink. The title “Echidna” at the top of the page is based on Geographica Script. On the two body-text pages printed on Munken Print Cream, SM3태고딕 and SM3견출고딕 from Jikji Soft are paired with Tuplet, which is set in all caps.

Manuscript / Ink and brush / 210×297 mm
Cyanotype (blueprint) / 127×178 mm
Print on Sheepskin paper / 90×90 mm
Print on Munken Print Cream / 100×270 mm
Rubber-stamped / 100×20 mm

First held in 2012, Changwon Sculpture Biennale is the only sculpture biennale in Korea. The 7th edition took place in 2024. Its title, “Silent Apple”, was taken from a line in “A Well-Ripened Apple” by acclaimed poet Kim Hyesoon. From the organizers:

The biennale will be introduced in four venues: Seongsan Art Hall, which has been the main exhibition venue for previous Changwon Sculpture Biennales; Seongsan Shell Mound (Historic Site No. 240), a shell tomb discovered in 1973; Dongnam Ground, a former industrial complex workplace; and the MoonShin Art Museum, shaped by a sculptor. The biennale aims to address horizontality in contemporary sculpture, women and labor, urban history and shifts, and changes in community.

Ted Hyunhak Yoon of Major Minority did the identity and graphic design using AC Affix by AllCaps. To accompany Affix, he used KIMM, a custom typeface designed by Jinhyun Park for the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials, as display font for Korean text, with SM Joong Gothic for smaller bits. The website was created by Eunjoo Hong and Hyungjae Kim.

The Korean text typeface used inside the catalog is yet unidentified.

Sesame oil isn’t new, but Sooki’s approach to it is. In the United States, it’s often treated as a background ingredient, something you reach for at the very end rather than something you build a meal around. Joseph and Hannah Choi of Sooki Foods came to us with a different point of view. They wanted to introduce a premium Korean sesame oil that highlights its depth, versatility, and cultural roots, while still feeling approachable and relevant to a broader audience.

We built a brand that brings sesame oil forward. Grounded in Sooki’s family story and traditional production methods, the identity balances heritage with a more modern, expression. The result positions Sooki as something you don’t tuck away in a cabinet, but keep out on the kitchen counter.

Cover and album design by Jaemin Lee for Elaine’s debut album titled 1, released with the Korean label Beatball Records.

Words from the designer:

Elaine’s debut album “1”, previously released only on CD, has been reissued on LP for the first time with a newly designed package. In place of images or artwork, I used a short line of copy to make a statement of debut—bold and direct, yet precisely typeset. The silver-foil element at the bottom catches the light like roots and a stem, hinting at a beginning and what may grow from it.

Herbus Serif is used for all display typography. The typefaces used for the lyrics are YMG Munche Gothic (Korean) and Atacama Extra Condensed Light (English).

We developed the brand identity for TARB, a new hair care brand. Guided by the philosophy of “True And Raw Beauty,” this project explored how to translate nature’s pure, primal beauty into a refined and deliberate language.

With both the Korean and Japanese markets in mind, we sought an aesthetic closer to attitude than visual excess. The direction began with the texture of Eastern minimalism and the quiet discipline of Zen.

We stripped away unnecessary ornamentation and built the packaging with restrained colors and generous negative space. The logo, too, takes its cues from natural forms rather than artificial expression.

To ensure beauty in its raw state is conveyed without exaggeration, we carried the brand’s core values consistently across its visual language and overall spatial experience.

The logo is custom drawn. Nordvest is the brand’s primary typeface, used for headings. On the packaging designs, it’s paired with Arno Italic. The website additionally uses ABC Diatype (English), Sandoll GothicNeo (Korean), and PingFang (Japanese).

ZER01NE (“Zero One”) is an open innovation platform belonging to Hyundai Motor Group where different perspectives converge to create questions and find answers. ZER01NE DAY 2019 took place at Hyundai Motor Service Center, Seoul. Massimo Grafia was used for the graphics, together with what appears to be Sandoll GothicNeo for Korean text.

From the designers of Everyday Practice:

ZER01NE DAY 2019 presents the results of the past year as creative minds who create questions from people, society, and life concerns, start-ups that translate questions into real-life, and find answers through quick action, and connect and share various questions and answers with people-centered social values. We have developed a borderline fluid image that reflects the theme of ZER01NE DAY 2019 called “BORDERLESS in EVERYTHING,” and have worked hard to articulate the theme of the festival in preparation for an object symbolizing the engine

Ordinary People designed the exhibition graphics and book for the 2023 Title Match: Dongi Lee vs. Sangwoo Kang at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, part of the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA). Title Match is a signature annual exhibition at the museum, and for 2023, it brought together artists Dongi Lee and Sangwoo Kang. These artists deconstruct the familiar by either ‘borrowing what has already been borrowed’ from mass media imagery or by revealing the ‘insignificant and fragile figure seen from behind’.


From the works of Dongi Lee and Sangwoo Kang, Ordinary People distilled shared themes of ‘temporality’, which disrupts linearity, and ‘ambiguity’, which purposefully obscures the familiar. Inspired by these concepts, they reinterpreted established norms, incorporating ambiguity as a core graphic element throughout the exhibition. The accompanying book also embraces this theme, reimagining conventional book structures, reading sequences, and orientations.

The design combines contemporary Latin and Korean typefaces to support the exhibition’s layered narrative. Farmacia by Nguyen Gobber is used for English titles across both the exhibition graphics and the book, adding a distinctive visual character to the design. Aktiv Grotesk KR by Dalton Maag serves as a secondary heading typeface for English and Korean in the exhibition graphics, providing clarity and consistency across languages. In the book, Korean headings are set in AG Madang Display by the AG Typography Institute, while GT America by Grilli Type is used for Korean and English body text.

WESS Exhibition \ Publication 2025 explores how exhibition experiences can be recorded and revisited through publications that remain after an exhibition ends. While exhibitions are often temporary and fleeting, publications continue to circulate across different times and places, generating new contexts. This project focuses on the lasting nature of publications and the time that unfolds beyond the exhibition itself.

In this design, Everyday Practice visualizes the layered and multifaceted character of exhibition publications. By juxtaposing different formats, colors, and textures, the design brings together exhibition, publication, and record as an intertwined state. A friendly character looking at a book serves as a central element, making the potentially heavy subject of exhibition publications more approachable. Rather than defining a clear hierarchy, the design allows multiple perspectives to coexist, suggesting the open-ended possibilities of publications after the exhibition.

The creative direction and design is by Joonho Kwon. They used Neue Sammlung for English text and AG Superblack Gothic for Korean.

Exhibition leaflet design for Massage Platz, a duo exhibition by Sojung Park and Yorgos Agrotes shown at Shower, 2025.

The Shape of Letters in Sign Languages is an exhibition about a multilingual experiment involving Korean, English, and sign language.

Selected for the Seoul Design Foundation’s DDP Open Curating program and hosted by Gallery MUN at DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza), the exhibition presented research into sign language as a new typographic element. The exhibits are based on typography methods that use layout, color, proportion, and movement within a set system. We created the visual identity, translating manual gestures into graphic motifs.

On view from 26 August to 23 November 2025, the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, “Séance: Technology of the Spirit”, opens to the public at Seoul Museum of Art and other venues across the city. Inspired by occult, mystical, and spiritual traditions, key to the proposal is that these alternative “technologies” contest the accelerationist and rationalistic logics of capitalist modernity, and might therefore help us to resist – and reconfigure – the political and intellectual structures that shape our experience.

In response to the curatorial theme, graphic design studio nonplace developed a visual system founded on a series of radiant halos symbolizing spiritual energy. Their arrangement into modular structures expresses the organization of immaterial forces into the patterns and forms of art and techne, providing a flexible, transformable, and infinitely extendable visual system. (Text rephrased from nonplace)

For the identity of the biennale, nonplace chose Noto Serif Korean (see Source Han Serif), accompanied by Moulin Light from Commercial Type.

Dongtan Station Art Station_MARS 151 is an art project that imagines a journey from Hwaseong, a city on Earth, to Mars, a planet in the universe. Through this journey, visitors are invited to envision a sustainable future through art.

In Korean, the name of the city Hwaseong (화성) refers both to the city where Dongtan Station is located and the planet Mars. This shared pronunciation creates a poetic link between reality and imagination.

The number 151 refers to Dongtan Station’s address (151 Dongtan-yeok-ro), a major transportation hub, while MARS symbolises an alternative planet envisioned by humanity.

Over three weeks of exhibitions, performances, lectures, and children’s workshops, Dongtan Station was transformed into the boarding platform of the Eco Spaceship MARS 151.

The project’s visual identity, designed by studio moonanhan, features a dynamic key image that conveys a sense of motion through time and space. The accompanying poster series combines tactile visual textures that invite multiple interpretations in line with the exhibition’s concept. Recognising the symbolic importance of Dongtan Station within the project, the design also visually emphasises B4, Dongtan Station.

For the main title, Hofmann by Nguyen Gobber was selected for its bold, futuristic character. The fluid curves of these Latin letters are contrasted by the rather straight geometric lines of the figures, which are set in Slight Chance by David Jonathan Ross. Dates are set in PF Expo by Parachute Type Foundry, and all Korean text was set in Noto Sans KR by Sandoll, and Pretendard by Hyung-jin Kil.