Three main talks to cover nations and cities, industrial design and culture


Masterminds behind best-selling BMWs, Samsung mobile phones, Coca Cola and theorists who can explain why consumers buy these products will come together in Seoul Wednesday and Thursday.

The iDEA Herald Design Forum will kick off Wednesday with presentation tournaments for college students. The second day will be comprised of three sessions, participated in by big names including Martin Lindstrom, Chris Bangle, Karim Rashid, Simon Anholt and Kim Young-se. Before official discussions take place, Lindstrom, brand futurist and the author of “Buyology” (2008), will make a keynote speech about world-changing design.

Session 1, National and City Design

Experts attending in the first session will discuss ways to design sustainable cities.

Following the keynote speech by Kwon Young-gull, Board Chairman at Seoul Design Foundation, Simon Anholt, a member of the U.K. Government’s Public Diplomacy Board, will lead the discussion.

Anholt coined the term “nation-branding” in 1998 and has since been encouraging governments to coordinate their economic policies to build strong brand identities.

Panelists include environmental activist Danny Seo, urban design planning expert Richard Register and duplex constructionist Lee Hyun-wook.

Seo will deliver his ideas to help change the lifestyles of the 95 percent of people who live green only 5 percent of the time. Register, the founding president of nonprofit educational organizations including Urban Ecology and Ecocity Builders, will give his opinions on ecological city planning for the future.

Lee Bae-yong, chairwoman of the Presidential Council on National Branding, will serve as the moderator of the discussion. 

Session 2, Design Talks to the Industry

Karim Rashid will open the second session with a speech highlighting the role of design in the corporate world. Along with a presentation of his own works, the brand specialist will raise questions companies would have to think about to draw highly educated consumers with ever more sophisticated sense of style.

Kim Young-se, president of Inno Design, will moderate discussions on the importance of design for commercial success. Panelists include Chris Bangle, former chief of design at BMW Group, Pyo Hyun-myung, president of mobile business group at KT Corp., and Chung Kook-hyun, president of Samsung Art & Design Institute. The four will foster a debate about how design shapes consumer electronics and analyze the latest hits in the industry.

Kim Young-se, who has made Samsung mobile phones a hit all over the world, will share his thoughts on emerging design trends in the industry with Bangle, who is now a design consultant at Samsung Electronics.

Session 3, Culture and Design

The third session will be held under the theme “Design, Story of Changing the World.”

Shim Jae-myung, CEO of Myung Films which produced the well-received animation film “Leafie, a Hen into the Wild,”; Choi Sang-hyun, designer of the mega hit animation “Pororo the Little Penguin”; and Marie Kim, pop artist, will join the discussion.

Choi will share the secrets in the making of the successful character, what he sees as the key in creating designs that move others’ hearts and his plans for the future.

Kim recently helped to design popular K-pop group 2NE1’s new album jacket and music video by creating animated characters of the group’s members. While many pop artists have collaborated with musicians worldwide, including Murakami Takashi’s collaboration with Kanye West or Andy Warhol’s with the Rolling Stones, but her case is the first in Korea. Kim will tell some stories behind her work and discuss the future of such collaborations here. 

By Cynthia J. Kim, Park Min-young
(cynthiak@heraldcorp.com) (claire@heraldcorp.com)