Choi Tae-ok: International Award-winning Designer from Gwangju
Interview by Karina Prananto
Gwangju is well known throughout the nation as a city of art. As one of Gwangju’s prominent international art events, the Gwangju Design Biennale proudly showcases designs from Gwangju artists. One of this year’s Biennale highlights are designs by Choi Tae-ok.
Choi, a Gwangju native, has 26 years of experience as a product designer for one of the nation’s largest home appliance companies. As their in-house designer, he launched numerous big brand products, including refrigerators and air purifiers. Currently, Choi has established his own design agency called “Design By” to support product designs for many domestic and overseas manufacturers.
Since product design has a great influence on small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies, Choi established the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center, the first of its kind in Korea, to discover next-generation designer talents from many companies and regions that are struggling with design.
We met for an interview with Choi to find out more about his designs and how he started in this industry.
Gwangju News (GN): Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional background?
Choi Tae-ok (Choi): I have liked to draw since elementary and middle school, so I started studying design at Gwangju Arts High School because I wanted to learn design professionally and was active in the school’s art club. I couldn’t attend an art academy like others due to family circumstances, but I was able to study design in the high school’s art room to my heart’s content, so I was able to enter the design department of the university of my choice, and I think it was my good luck that I could join Daewoo Electronics after graduation.
It was a great help to grow as a professional designer by working with talented colleagues there. I think it was an opportunity to grow as a global designer by helping with a number of overseas projects, especially in Asia and Europe.
Now, based on those experiences, I am working as a representative designer of a product design agency called Design By in my hometown of Gwangju. It has been selected as an Excellent Design Company by the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, as it has carried out about 40 projects per year for many small- and medium-sized enterprises in need of design expertise. The organization also won the Korea Industrial Design Award, the grand prize in the Excellent Design Product Selection (Good Design) Award, and more than 20 other awards, including from Red Dot, iF IDEA, and G-Mark from Japan. Design By has become widely known internationally since then.
Knowing well that product design has a great impact on small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies, I established the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center in the vicinity of Gwangju, the first of its kind in Korea, to find next-generation designer talent. I hope that this effort will become a new source of vitality for creating stable jobs in local industries and high value-added knowledge services by operating a “win-win design institution” that discovers next-generation designer talent from the industry and supports them as professional designers. Some of our designs for companies, such as DH Global with the Steniq Ice Machine and DK Co., Ltd.’s Wall-Mounted Air Purifier are now displayed in Hall 5 of the 2021 Gwangju Design Biennale.
GN: Could you please tell us about your award-winning air purifier and ice machine?
Choi: DK Co., Ltd. is a partner of Samsung Electronics and is a manufacturing company that represents Gwangju. The collaboration between DK and Design By started with the design of a dehumidifier in 2012. It is a representative collaborative case that carries out most of DK’s own brand products such as floor-standing air purifiers, wall-mounted air purifiers, and range hoods.
DK’s wall-mounted air purifier is a product designed to solve various problems of existing indoor air purifiers. It has the ultrafine dust levels that can clean large spaces in real-time to improve air quality. It has excellent space utilization and is a product with many advantages, as it can be installed and used out of reach of children, so it is especially useful in kindergartens and facilities with children. The main characteristic is that the front cover is designed in a way that is easy to attach and remove so that users can easily replace or clean filters.
DH Global is also a representative manufacturing company in Gwangju, starting as a partner of Samsung Electronics and producing its own brand name Steniq Crystal Ice Machine and Korea’s first soju refrigerator, Seolleim.
Design By’s partnership with DH Global started in 2020. They produced their own Steniq Crystal Ice Machine based on the cooling and air conditioning technology from Samsung Electronics’ DNA, and through this relationship, the two companies’ cooperative business model was the first step in the development of the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center.
It is a win-win cooperative business model between manufacturing companies and design companies that overcomes the limitations of earlier models by hiring a dedicated designer only for DH Global and commissioning Design By as the design research center.
The Steniq Crystal Ice Machine has a high capacity of up to 15 kilograms, considering the user’s lifestyle and the environment. It has a voluminous exterior shape, like a traditional paste and sauce jar (jangdok, 장독), based on the wisdom of our ancestors who kept and fermented food in jars. It is intended to appear as if it were rising, and the vent is shaped like a snowflake so that consumers can easily recognize it as an ice-making product. It has three color choices to suit customers’ tastes – black, white, and pink.
In addition, it has a touch screen at the top for easy operation by users, and the progress of the ice maker is visible with LED lighting. It is designed with a user’s convenience in mind, with the ability to open and close the door smoothly and safely. It is also equipped with a UV light function with high sterilization power, which is harmless to the human body, allowing users to receive cleaner and more hygienic ice.
GN : What do you think about designs and products from Gwangju and their competitiveness?
Choi : This year, Gwangju Design Biennale products exhibited in Hall 5 (with the theme d-Revolution for Gwangju) are excellent products, labeled “Made in Gwangju” and “Design by Gwangju.”
Exhibited items can be broadly classified into products released through collaboration between manufacturing companies and design companies, and brand products developed by design companies on their own. You can feel that there has been a change from manufacturing-oriented products of the past to design-oriented products.
In particular, many products related to Gwangju’s representative industries, such as air appliances and AI are exhibited, allowing one to appreciate the message of design from major regional industries.
GN : What are your hopes by attending this year’s Biennale?
Choi: As a designer, I hope that design will be an opportunity to communicate with the public, and I especially hope that this event will be a chance for people to heal, physically and mentally, from the COVID-19 pandemic.
GN : Do you have any message to those who want to start doing business as entrepreneurs?
Choi: I think the beginning is a very important starting point for anyone. Even with a good idea, the probability of failure can be minimized by learning through the experiences of one’s seniors and listening to opinions from colleagues and juniors.
GN: Thank you, Artist Choi, for your insights. We wish you many more successes to come!
Photographs courtesy of Choi Tae-ok and Isaiah Winters.
The Interviewer
Karina Prananto is from Indonesia and has been involved with the Gwangju News since 2007. She is a special needs mother who loves watching suspense movies, reading, and driving with her family.