Formerly the Herald Design Forum, the event brought leading creatives from design, art and architecture to DDP under the theme "Beyond Visuals"
Herald Design Lounge, an annual design conference of keynotes, talks and panel discussions, held its first edition under its new name on Friday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul.
Organized by Herald Media Group, publisher of The Korea Herald and The Herald Business, the event explored the future of design across graphics, architecture and media art under the theme "Beyond Visuals."
Speakers examined how design shapes our experience with technology as generative AI upends the creative process. The event drew about 400 spectators to hear designers, artists and an architect weigh in on design's role beyond the visual.
"The real power of design isn't in what you see but in how it changes the way we see and experience the world," Herald Media Group CEO Choi Jin-young said in his opening remarks. "As technology evolves, the questions as to what to make, and why, matter more than ever."
Cha Kang-heui, CEO of the Seoul Design Foundation, a city-run foundation that manages DDP, said AI is already changing what designers are valued for. "With AI taking over the making of form, what really counts now is the eye that sees beyond it," Cha said.
Austrian designer Stefan Sagmeister opened the program with a keynote titled "Finally, Something Good," in which he drew on his data-driven art to argue that the world is getting better. Sagmeister then joined typographer Yu Ji-won, director of the gmi. Institute for Typography & Culture, for a panel moderated by media artist Lee Jin-joon, a professor at KAIST's Graduate School of Culture Technology.
The second half of the program turned to newer forms of AI-driven creative work. Kim Gryun, an Emmy-winning motion designer now working as a creative on Apple TV's content team, turned his presentation into a 3D game the audience could explore. He also presented an interactive film whose ending changes in real time based on viewers' choices.
Generative AI artist Yoon Seok-kwan, known as KeepKwan, presented his work reinterpreting hanbok through AI and urged creators to stay grounded in hands-on experience. Architect Yoon Kyeong-sik, chairman of Hankook Architects, closed the event by walking the audience through his redesign of Inwolsa, a Buddhist temple in Gangneung that burned down in a 2023 wildfire.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com