Kang Yoonsung Book Design

Press Kit

Unique Properties

Kang Yoonsung is a graphic designer and university professor representing South Korea. He retired as a professor in February 2020. We decided to make a book to celebrate Kang Yoonsung's retirement. Since ancient times, there has been a custom in Korea to make rainbow rice cakes and share them on a feast day. Koreans shared rice cakes on auspicious days such as 100 days, 1st birthday, marriages, and 60th birthdays. We hoped that retirement would be a feast day, not a sad day, so the concept of the book became rainbow rice cake. The book consists of letters from 60 colleagues and students from Korea, China and Japan and design work by Kang Yoonsung. The book means a comma for a new beginning, not the end of Kang's design journey.

Dimensions & Packaging

170mm x 250mm x 55mm, 648page, Soft nude bookbinding, Hot foil stamping processing on cover, The corrugated cardboard is glued to the cover

Tags

graphic, graphic design, design, editorial, typography, book, book design, brand design, branding, poster, poster design

Production Technology

The page proceeded with offset printing. The binding was made with soft nude binding and then glued white corrugated cardboard to the first and last pages. Black Hot foil stamping processing on white corrugated cardboard, which is 2mm thick. Five colored papers of pink, light green, yellow, mint and purple were sequentially listed to form a book by mixing them with printed white paper.

Design Challenge

The biggest difficulty was the proper allocation of 60 letters, 200 works of images and 500 photographs. To realize the shape of rainbow rice cake, the four-sided color of the border of the book must look like a rainbow. Therefore, the distribution of letters, images, and photographs became an important challenge because the design had to be uniformly done with a certain amount of page allocation. Book spine had to be exposed to embody the shape of rainbow rice cake, and the choice of paper was too important for the color representation of the rainbow. The page tried a combination of white paper and colored paper, and the cover wanted to use white corrugated paper to form a rainbow rice cake. Through this type of rainbow rice cake, He wanted to make the retirement ceremony feel an exciting feast.

Project Duration

The project started in Seoul, Korea in September 2019, Beijing, China, and Tokyo, Japan, and was completed in Seoul in February 2020.

Operation Flow

Retirement in a person's life is experienced once. The feelings you feel about retirement will vary from person to person. But you never have to be sad just because you retire. Retirement is not the last in life, but a comma for the beginning of a new journey. The book consists of letters written to Kang Yoonsung by 60 people, including colleagues and students from Korea, China and Japan. Hopefully, readers will feel indirectly the life of Kang Yoonsung as a designer and individual preparing for a new journey through this book.

Research

He felt the need to look back on the life of a person who has lived 65 years through 60 letters and the life of a graphic designer through about 200 design works. The book consists of 12 chapters. Through 60 letters from Korean, Chinese, and Japanese colleagues and disciples and a book designed by designer Kang Yoonsung's poster design, book design, and brand design, we intend to introduce readers' life to Kang Yoonsung. Also, He wanted to make Korea feel the feast culture through the form of rainbow rice cake.

Inspiration

In Korea, the meaning of a rainbow is 'the door of water.' The shape of a round oval rainbow was regarded as a door that went up from the ground to the sky. As a result, rainbow was interpreted as an auspicious meaning, and since ancient times, it has been common practice in Korea to make and share rainbow rice cakes on a feast days. Inspired by this traditional element, He wanted to design a book in the form of rainbow rice cake so that He could share the joy like sharing rice cakes on an exciting feast day.

Image Credits

Sunghoon Kim

Colors of Kang Yoonsung Book Design