DAEKI and JUN, under the creative leadership of the South Korean Shim siblings, continue to expand the boundaries of design with their notable award-winning posters for two exhibitions, “Artificial Plants: A Botanic Garden” (above, left) and “UD Lifestyle Platform for Human, Society, and Future” (above, right). The studio delivers visually arresting experiences through their creative work that is rich in conceptual depth. The posters underscore the studio’s dedication to pushing creative frontiers.
By: Daeki & HyoJun Shim, Co-founders, DAEKI and JUN
Artificial Plants: A Botanic Garden
In addition to client work, our design studio, DAEKI and JUN, have a second brand, Becoming a Digital Being (BDB), which focuses on experimental projects. “Artificial Plants: A Botanic Garden” is a poster for Daeki Shim’s solo exhibition, and the exhibition is one of BDB’s projects, sponsored by CA Books and PH Gallery. The exhibit’s artwork involves designing a habitat where living and non-living things coexist in a space where the virtual and the real overlap, imagining what it would be like to live there.
The exhibition took place for three months in the botanical garden greenhouse on the first floor of the PH Gallery. The graphic works installed depicted representations of artificial nature such as air, water, and light, all of which could be viewed in augmented reality. The aim was to provide visitors with the experience of superimposing various plants in the botanical garden and digitally representing artificial nature in AR.
The graphics depicted in the poster incorporated each element from the graphic works installed in the exhibition and implicitly represented the passage of time and the artificial nature created in the digital environment. The current “digital environment” is neither the past nor the future but the present we live in, so it was a project we were naturally interested in.
UD Lifestyle Platform for Human, Society, and Future
The “UD Lifestyle Platform for Human, Society, and Future” project is a poster designed to promote the platform and exhibition showcased at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). Companies participating in this exhibition are grounded in the philosophy of “Opportunity for all; a better future life for humanity and society,” and the main graphic featured in the poster serves as the central motif for the installations comprising the exhibition.
This underscores the program’s philosophy, which starts from individual residential life (UD HOME) and extends to urban life shared by all (UD CITY). It fosters a space where creators and consumers (UD PEOPLE) convene to exchange UD values and generate innovative designs.
Additionally, the typography and visual elements further emphasize humanity and societal interconnectedness, symbolizing a better future.
An Experimental Project and A Client Project
DDP’s team members, responsible for overseeing “UD Lifestyle Platform for Human, Society, and Future,” possess a profound grasp of design. Additionally, DAEKI and JUN demonstrated flexibility and effective communication with clients, facilitating seamless project coordination and completion.
Reflecting on our experience, we realize that we underwent a more rigorous revision process during the development of the “Artificial Plants: A Botanic Garden” project. Even in our experimental endeavors, we adopted a client-centric approach, continuously questioning and refining our work to ensure the visual communication is both conceptual and purposeful.
We approach each project differently, but we think it’s a natural part of the design process to go through the “question and answer” process with or without a client and to be flexible and adaptive.
DAEKI and JUN is a design studio founded in 2013 by siblings Daeki and Hyojun Shim. The studio operates as a multidisciplinary design studio specializing in corporate identity, brand identity, exhibition identity, brand strategy, art direction, moving image, exhibition consultancy, and design consultancy. DAEKI and JUN’s representative clients include Gangwon State, the Gangwon Design Festa, DDP dnA: Art & Design, DDP Magazine Library, DDP NFT, and the East Sea International Art Pre-Biennale. Over the past ten years, DAEKI and JUN’s work has been recognized the world over, winning numerous awards or being nominated in over 120 international biennales and competitions.
