Graphic design in
contemporary Korea:
an oral history project
by Zara Arshad
An incomplete,
ever-growing
archive

Image captions:
1. Journey for Life book.
2. Photo of Woo Yunige.
3. ABC’s of LGBT+, published by Baume à l'âme.



Interview details
Narrator: WOO Yunige
Interviewer: Zara Arshad
Interpreter: LEE Sol
Date: Thursday 27 June 2019
Location: The designer’s studio in Seoul, South Korea
Length: approx. 1 hour, 14 minutes

The starting point of Baume à l'âme, Woo Yunige’s publishing platform, was the book Reclaim the Language: How to Deal with a Sexist. It was published in 2016, when there was little content for the general public about feminist issues. There were academic events, but no light and accessible material for the general public.

[...]

The book was written by Lee Min-Gyeong and she [Woo Yunige] designed the book [...] the book was crowdfunded, and so they also made merchandise for people who bought the book [...] the author Lee Min-Gyeong, the editor Lee Dooroo, and book designer Woo Yunige met many times to decide on the structure of the book, how to approach readers etc. As already mentioned, at that time, there was no, not much content regarding feminist issues that is fun and light - the team were not trying to make this book beautiful or pretty, but they also wanted to avoid a serious tone. They wanted something fun, like you can approach and buy the book [...] that was their objective for the design of the book. There are no feminist books that use these funny, cute characters, so this is the direction they decided on.

[...]

The second project of Baume à l'âme was not just a book, but also an illustrated postcard set - they made postcards, magnets and calendars [...] these illustrations show women figures [...] those who have made a great achievement, but women who are less recognised or under-researched. So, Yunige started this project to celebrate these underrecognised women, to make a record of them.

[...]

This is the book published in 2018 and the title of the book is ‘European Abortion Trip’ in Korean [...] the English title is Journey for Life. This book is about uhm the journey of the members of Baume à l'âme, who went to Europe to interview activists fighting for abortion rights. The contents of this book is based on these interviews. For this project, the team went to France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland and Romania, meeting activists in each of these places. Yuni also designed the book.

[...]

The use of black symbolises the Black Protest, which is the protest for abortion rights that started in Poland. Yuni used the colour black because many feminists and many women, who are interested in feminism know about the Black Protest, which was in Korea too. Yuni actively used this colour to symbolise this. The size of the typography for the words ‘Europe’, ‘Abortion’ and ‘Journey’ is really big. She did that to [...] attract the audience because the word ‘abortion’ is the word that is kind of [...] a taboo to say that [...] The word 낙태 (nagtae), ‘abortion’ in Korean, has a really negative meaning and a negative nuance, and uhm she, she just put this word really big so that people can see this word and be shocked when someone is reading this book in the subway, for example.

In contrast to the cover, which is black and white, the inside of the book is really colourful with the tri-colour [...] pages: these symbolise the flags of each country the team visited [...] every country has a different situation in terms of abortion rights, so the team divided each chapter by country using a colour-coded system, which enables readers to easily access the stories of each country - their different histories and situation. Additionally, in contrast to the book’s front cover, its back cover is really colourful with all the flags uhm mixed up and this means that women around the world are connected - they are in solidarity.

[...]

Yuni designed the Korean version of the book, the ABCs of LGBT+ [...] when the light reflects the hologram cover of this book, a rainbow can be seen. This indirectly shows the symbol of LGBT+. As people see the book from different angles, they see different colours - a different uhm design - and this means to see LGBT+ in a more diverse way, from a more diverse perspective. The content of the book looks to introduce LGBT+ ideas, themes and issues to the general public in an accessible way, but the author doesn’t try to fix these ideas or concepts. Like the hologram cover, when people see this way or that way, they see different colours, a different object. This mirrors the content of the book [...] you can understand the same concept in different ways.

[...]

As a co-founder of the Feminist Designer Social Club (FDSC), Yuni mainly designs the graphics for the group. She did their logo and identity design [...] This group consists of very diverse members, different people, so she wanted uhm the visual identity to represent this diversity. So, the logo is a ball and on the ball it says ‘Feminist Designer Social Club’ [...] many balls are shown in the graphic, and this represents the diversity of group [...] Yuni also makes posters for FDSC study groups, small gatherings and meetings [...] and she is completing some film documentation of the FDSC podcast.

Biography:
(b. 1991, Gyeonggi-do) Ooh Yuni (Woo Yunige) is a graphic designer and co-founder of the Feminist Designer Social Club. She has an unwavering passion for working with women and encouraging the development of equality, as reflected in her feminist-oriented publishing platform Baume à l'âme. Ooh Yuni studied visual communication design at Hongik University.


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