Linda Kwon discussed the need to re-evaluate the role of design and identify systems undermining health and happiness. She believes a synchronized approach is needed to both expose invisible systems and provide a way to re-vision the world through living by design rather than by default. Dr. Joonsang Baek spoke about the limitations of user-centered design approaches for sustainable product-service systems and the importance of considering stakeholders. Seewon Hyun investigated how design found in public and daily life relates to happiness and labor, discussing perspectives of visual culture and possibilities for progress, happiness, and satisfaction to coexist.

1. Ancient futures : Design and / or Happiness
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KEYNOTE
Linda Kwon
Redesigning Design
Linda Kwon
Linda Kwon is a designer and health design strategist investigating the systemic health impacts
of food and technology. She is currently developing ways of promoting public health through
design and media. She has a background in graphic design, integrative health and recently
completed an MA in Design Futures at Goldsmiths University of London. She also writes for the
London based graphic design magazine Eye. Previously in Korea, Linda taught social design at
Kookmin University and worked for the UNESCO affiliated Intangible Cultural Heritage Centre
for Asia and the Pacific. She was a coordinator for the Seoul World Design Capital exhibition
about urban revitalisation and was a researcher for the Discovery Asia documentary ‘Smart
City Seoul’.
Design has evolved to cover a much broader scope that is in part a reflection of technological
advancement as well as the understanding of what design can do. In more recent years, we
have seen a growing emphasis on conscious design that actively serves societal needs rather
than simply serving industry and commerce. There is a growing wave of designers seeking
greater meaning and purpose in the work that they do. The time has come to take a step back
and evaluate the role that design has played thus far and identify the default systems that
we are tangled up in. Within this context, let us reconsider the role design could be taking
from both a broad macro scale to the individual micro level. I believe a synchronized approach
is necessary that both exposes the invisible systems at work undermining our health and
happiness, and simultaneously provides a way to re-vision our world and realize that vision. It
is ultimately about shifting from living by default, to living by design, and fully recognizing the
role that we as designers can play in this process.
Redesigning Design
Dr. Joonsang Baek
Why stakeholders matter in design for social innovation and sustainability.
Dr. Joonsang Baek
Dr. Joon Sang Baek is an assistant professor and director of the DESIS (Design for Social
Innovation and Technology) lab at the School of Design and Engineering at Ulsan National
Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). His main research areas include design for social
innovation and sustainability, and transformation design in order to solve social problems.
He studied product and interaction design in the industrial design department at KIST and
received his PhD at Politecnico di Milano with a dissertation on the role of ICTs in empowering
collaborative services from socio-technical perspective. He worked as a visiting researcher at
the Center for Appropriate Technologies (GrAT) in Vienna and at the Hope Institute in South
Korea.
Systemic solutions are known to be more effective than products in addressing complex societal
and individual needs and at the same time delinking economic growth from environmental
impact. Therefore, the design outputs are often in the form of a product-service mix or productservice system (PSS). PSS helps stakeholders understand and fulfill their needs. Thus, within
PSS, it is substantial to develop a sustainable design solution. In this speech, limitations of usercentered approaches in designing sustainable PSS are illustrated with the story of two cities. At
the end, the notion of stakeholder-considered design is proposed with a case.
Why stakeholders matter in
design for social innovation
and sustainability.
Seewon Hyun
Labour of love, and design
Seewon Hyun
Currently, Seewon Hyun is an independent curator and critic on art/visual culture after studying
Art Theory at Korea National University of Arts and has lead many independent/special
exhibition plans. She has also written <Design Vice Versa)(2010, Hakgojae) and her new book
<Rediscovery of objects in views>(2013, Hyunsil book, coming). Besides, she published visual/
cultural magazine <Walking Magazine> as well as booklets for exhibitions. She is now co-editor
of <Ob.scene3> and <Art Folder>. She gives lectures about design theory, modern art seminars,
exhibition planning and visual culture at Kookmin University, Kyewon University, Korea National
University of Arts, etc.
How have the tools of habit and labor evolved? Currently, what kind of happiness and joy can
design offer in terms of human labor? ‘Labor of love’ represents labor which drives people into
their flow of joy. In this presentation, Seewon Hyun investigates design that is found in public
places and in daily lives that traces the link between a sense of happiness/unhappiness and the
familiar. Socialist Richard Sennett indicates composure through the working process in calm
and orderly ways according to the rules of operation within some attitudes towards rewards
by citing philosopher, Adriano Tilgher. Is it possible that progress, happiness and satisfaction
coexist? The speaker seeks to discuss perspectives of visual culture within daily life.
Labour of love, and design
Yeakyung Yoon & Jiwon Lee
Design Speaking
Yeakyung Yoon
Yeakyung Yoon is a design writer, critic and educator specializing in design. He is Adjunct
Professor in Green Design in the College of Art at Kookmin University in Seoul. In 2008, he cofound Designers' Speaking, an Internet Podcast radio show, and in 2012, co-founded Stephanus
Bandelli, where he publishes books about design and art. Yoon's articles, columns have
appeared in D+, g colon, GRAPHIC and many other publications, catalogues, and books. He has
published a book What is good design(2012), and currently is working on his second book the
Critical Biography of William Morris.
Jiwon Lee
Jiwon Lee is a graphic designer, writer and educator. His expertise lies in type design, show
hosting and design theory. His writings have been published as a book Uncomfortable
perspectives of a graphic designer(2013), and translated three books Our Graphic Design of Our
Time: An Anthology of Mr. Keedy(2013), Looking Closer 3(2010), Graphic Design Theory(2009).
Jiwon is published in Eye magazine, Design Observer, D+, g colon, Hiut, CA Korea and so on.
He is a co-founder and panel of Designers' speaking, an Internet Podcast radio show. After
his study at CalArts, he worked at Crispin Porter and Bogusky, CO, taught at Old Dominion
University, VA and currently is teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul. His latest conference as
a planning committee, Chohyung Jeon, ran at College of Design, Kookmin University, Seoul in
2013.
The Podcast radio show, Designers' Speaking has been Online for more than three years. The
five panels, Yeakyung Yoon, Jiwon Lee, Keywon Chung, Seonmee Kim and Eurae Kim proved
their ability to speak up for design issues. Through out the show, they want to share a discourse
about design and creative industry which is logical and intuitive, professional and public,
transparent and omnipresent. They believe that design as a social study and activity cannot
be built by a dogmatic idea but by diversified opinion by general public. What motivation lead
them to spend their own money to keep doing this non-profit move? At this presentation,
Yeakyung and Jiwon will talk about what they are trying to achieve with Designers' Speaking
and their other activities.
Design Speaking
James Powderly
Brave New Old
James Powderly
James Powderly has been making technology and media at the fringes of robotics, graffiti,
space science, tattoos, rice straw and rock n roll. His inventions, pranks and community art
projects have been awarded grants, detentions and awards, including the 2009 Interactive
Design of the Year from Design Museum, London, the 2010 Golden Nica from Ars Electronica,
the 2010 Excellence Prize from the Japan New Media Art Festival and the 2011 Swiss Art Award
at Art Basel. James has shown his work in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern, premiered his first
feature-film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and was the keynote speaker in 2009 at
SXSW. James worked as an adjunct professor at Parsons The New School for Design, a visiting
professor at the Kyoto Seika University Creative Lab in Kyoto, Japan and an Assistant Professor
of Visual Communications Design at Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea. James was the
cofounder of the Graffiti Research Lab, the Free Art and Technology Lab and his own design
studio, Nasa Factory, and currently works on the Advanced Design Team at Samsung Electronics.
Emerging values systems, resilient old technology and new reinterpretations of fundamental
science are increasingly challenging the unquestioned value of innovation and the unbridled
advancement of consumer technology. Far from a ludditic manifesto, this lecture will present
a refreshing vision of how a future of big, old, slow, DIY and disconnected technology, from
neuromorphic chips to rice straw craft, might bring more value and happiness into society and
our individual lives.
Brave New Old