Korea Power

Add to My Reading List

Klaus Klemp Editor

H. C. Ahn Editor

Gestalten, Berlin, 2013, English and German

Nonfiction, Graphic Design; Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

11.3 x 9.4 inches, hardcover, 248 pages, color illustrations

ISBN: 9783899554885

Suggested Retail Price: $50.00

From the Publisher. From cars to electronics, Korean design is conquering the world. Korea Power explores Korea’s contemporary design culture between tradition and the future. Currently one of the world’s leading industrial nations, South Korea produces an enormous amount of consumer goods. This book is the first comprehensive collection of contemporary Korean product and graphic design. This book aims to document the "Korean identity" that has been formed as the country has become a modern state in the aftermath of the fall of the Josean Dynasty, its occupation by the Japanese, and the Korean War. To this end, Korea Power includes images that the legendary Korean advertising photographer Kim Han-Yong shot in the years of reconstruction following the war. It also features images shot in Seoul and Pyongyang by the German architecture photographer Dieter Leistner that strikingly capture the divided land of today. South Korea's rapid rise to an economic superpower almost swept away all traces of a traditional lifestyle. Today, however, the cultural values of Korea's past are again becoming more influential. Many Korean designers now have a new sensibility for their culture's traditional definition of beauty. They are also defining an original, distinctly Korean elegance. This new development is represented in the book by work from the Culture Keepers, for example. Their designs for practical furniture and table settings are inspired by the aesthetics of the past, yet are ideally suited to meet the needs of our modern lives.

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.