Seoul Design Festival promotes 'kidult' culture
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Poster of Seoul Design Festival
By Yun Suh-young
The Seoul Design Festival, Korea’s largest design-related event, will open today under the theme of “Play with Design” at the COEX convention center in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, and will run through Sunday.
The festival exhibits various projects of designers in collaboration with well-known brands, featuring over 180 brands and 600 designers.
This year, entertainment products such as paper toys and character figure brands will participate in line with the expanding "kidult" culture. Participation from paper brands, living design brands, kids' brands and local and foreign designers' concept stores are also to be added to the pool of existing participants.
The exhibition is divided into sections, such as Design Management, Designer Promotion, Designers' Lab, and Design Brand. The Design Management section offers space design with designers in collaboration with brands, such as Chevrolet and Common Ground. The Designer Promotion section offers personal branding exhibitions of 45 local designers. Designers' Lab offers collaborative artwork of 35 designers under the theme "Seoul." The Design Brand section exhibits 138 brands and their products.
Additional events such as design seminars and outdoor Seoul Design Spot festivals will also be held. The Seoul Design Spot is an event which designates design spots all over Seoul and introduces them along with their designers and their showrooms and ateliers. At this year's festival, visitors can check out 225 design spots in Seoul from Dec. 1 through 11.
The three-day-long design seminars themed "Design and Business" will be held from Dec. 7 through 9. They include lectures from high-profile designers and entrepreneurs in the design industry. Participants include Masaaki Kanai, president of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. better known for its brand MUJI; Kim Young-se, CEO of Innodesign; Kim Bong-jin, CEO of Woowa Brothers; and Kim Sang-hoon, chief UX designer for Alipay.
The Seoul Design Festival which meets its 15th year this year opened in 2002 in an effort to discover and promote talented local designers and introduce them to the public as well as to strengthen the competitiveness of local design brands. It has fostered 2,700 designers so far and has promoted 1,200 brands over the years. Last year, 93,000 visitors participated in the festival.
The ticket price for the exhibition is 10,000 won and can be bought on-site. For more information, visit seoul.designfestival.co.kr.