ASIA DESIGNER COMMUNICATION PLATFORM

【 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic medal designers, Sukwoo Lee and SWNA How they get inspiration from everyday life and inspire our daily life again 】

Where does inspiration come from? The answer of Sukwoo Lee, the representative of the design office SWNA, is simple and clear. “Look and see.” If you don't know SWNA yet, let's find a medal designer for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. SWNA's design is also a product that may be next to us right now, and it is naturally ubiquitous in our daily lives and has not been noticed. This book 『Inspiration for Everyday Life, SWNA』 is a book in the form of a collection of 62 projects and their processes selected by Sukwoo Lee among numerous projects over the past 18 years.

Turning over the title page and meeting first before the turn, Kim Sangkyu and Chung Dahyoung's recommended remarks "Tactile of the Process" and "Design of Self-Renewal". The writings of the two people, who have been observing with continuous interest in SWNA, contain a loving gaze and anticipation for the future. As the introductory text “Creativity and the Context of Industrial Design” was written by the author Sukwoo Lee, the character of the entire book can be understood. As an industrial designer who has acquired an unrivaled position in the industry, his solidity can be seen in the words he silently wrote with honest advice for his posterity.

The text is divided into two main parts. The project part describes the idea phase or concept of a design, how it is made, or how it is used. Looking at the vivid color result image printed on smooth paper, it is as if the product is born complete. Everything I envisioned in my head seemed to be fully realized. However, in the process part, SWNA showed the development of an early idea that was crude and crude like a raw stone. The black and white image shows how the gemstone is polished through sketches, mock-ups, and prototypes.

The dialogue between the two parts, 「Designer's Thought Process」, briefly evokes the atmosphere with blue-tone spot colors and SWNA office landscape photos. In the conversation between Sukwoo Lee and Bo-Seop Kim, the troubles that one would have if they were engaged in a creative field and how to overcome them naturally appear, and the two parts of completion (project) and process (process) are connected. An index is placed at the end of the book to provide an overview of 62 projects and processes in this book. Not only are the project name and a number of pages listed, but in the hopes that it will be helpful to people in the relevant industry or aspiring designers, classification, materials, information, and clients organized, and SWNA's Yunjae Lee's illustration is added.

▪  Source: SWNA Press release
▪  Author: Sukwoo Lee
▪  Photography Credit: © SWNA