Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in North America, National Museum of Korea

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.