Let’s Talk with Designers
Samsung Designer’s Real Story Part 2
What is
a meaningful design?
What answer can we give to such a question? No matter what the answer is,
any designer would be deep in thought when faced with this question.
The sheer hours Samsung Electronics designers spent in contemplation,
along with their inspiration, experience, and understanding altogether
became the values that accumulated over time to shape the design heritage
and culture of Samsung Electronics today. Here’s the video that tells
the ‘genuine story of Samsung Electronics Designers,’
who have been making the utmost effort to create meaningful design
that partners with its users to pave the path to a new future.
and do not represent the stance or strategy of Samsung Electronics in any way.
My Samsung Life
What is my identity as a Samsung Electronics Designer?
-
Jae Neung Lee : To borrow from the title of a popular TV show, my
identity would be ‘Show me the money.’ It’s not about designing a
product that sells well, but it’s about designing a product that can
satisfy a multitude of users. This is also my design philosophy. I think
that the more time I spend working as a designer, the more I should be
creating designs that bring joy to users.Soo Jung Lee : For me it’s being a ‘Multi-player.’ I’m currently tasked
with both product design and UX design. As a result, I’m able to see
both fields in a holistic perspective and have developed an ability to
think critically in various ways. A product and its UX design must
interact with one another, and the fact that I can meet these needs as
a multi-player is my identity as a designer. -
Jae Won Choi : My identity as a Samsung Electronics Designer is best
described as a ‘Public Bathhouse.’ When I feel overwhelmed during a
project, I sometimes experience the urge to quit design. But when my
work leads to a great finished product, I fall in love with design all
over again. As you can see, my love for design goes back and forth
between the cold bath and the hot bath.Hye Won Park : The show ‘PRODUCE 101.’ It’s because as a designer, I’m
continuously making the effort to be ‘picked’ as a great UX design by
users. Users are like public producers searching for hot talent, and
designers are people who constantly learn and create to showcase an
even more attractive design that can be picked out from the crowd.
My Design Life
Which project was the most meaningful to you as a designer?
-
Jae Neung Lee : It was the Serif TV design with the Bouroullec
brothers. I did not participate in the project personally, but I was
pleasantly surprised about the fact that it was a collaboration with
the Bouroullec brothers, who are world-renowned designers in the
field of furniture design. It was a meaningful design that brought the
television, a digital appliance, into the world of furniture. Many
designers and users highly praised this project.Soo Jung Lee : For me it was the responsive exterior design I did
previously for TV and audio. It was a reactive design that elevated the
product beyond its hard shell and provided useful functions to users
who approached the product. I developed a deep interest in UX design
through this project, and eventually transitioned to a different task. -
Jae Won Choi : The POWERstick PRO project. The POWERstick PRO was
designed to be the strongest and most long-lasting stick vacuum
cleaner, so it inevitably had a heavier body than products from other
companies. For this project, the designers were the ones who
spearheaded the search for a solution. It started as a progressive
design, but fortunately yielded a great result that led to product
production. This was the most meaningful project for me.Hye Won Park : The Galaxy Note’s S Pen translation function. I came up
with this idea when I saw a user searching for individual English words
he came upon while reading an English dissertation on the bus. This
function allows users to quickly translate a term by just placing the S
Pen on top of a word they do not know. This was a very meaningful
project for me because we alleviated an everyday inconvenient for our
users through a simple idea that was inspired by a real-life experience.
My Advice to Wannabe Designers
What is a key quality that wannabe designers should possess?
-
Jae Neung Lee : Being responsible for one’s own design is important.
A designer should be able to produce a meticulous design that comes
from careful and responsible contemplation of a user’s entire
experience with a product, starting from the first encounter to the
continued process of using the product. If designers can trust and
collaborate with each other based on this notion of responsibility and
ownership, there will be no greater synergy than that.Soo Jung Lee : First, it’s having a unique characteristic. You need to
understand your strengths and cultivate it into an expertise. The
second is having an open mind that can accept the opinions of others,
so that you can form a collective perspective from the many opinions
given to you by these unique minds. I think being a great designer is
about taking in these various opinions and interpreting it into your
own language. -
Jae Won Choi : When you are working on a project, you will often be
bombarded with a myriad of opinions with each milestone you cross.
The process of absorbing these opinions and advice is crucial. After
all, the ‘perseverance’ that enables you to overcome this process will
in turn help you develop a great design.Hye Won Park : You must have the endeavor to envision a design that
can make our day-to-day lives more pleasant. To create such a design,
you need to take an ‘interest in people’ so that you can understand
human nature and empathize with others. It is also great to have as
much as ‘curiosity’ as you can so that it pushes you to always question
the reasons behind peoples’ actions. Make sure you are always being
inspired. Thinking about the motives behind any design, even for a
simple app you may use on your phone, is a great attitude to have as
a designer.
You can check out more stories by Samsung Electronics designers through the video located on the top of the page.
The heartfelt sincerity of
our designers lies within each advice
given to aspiring designers.
Based on this profound conversation, we could understand that a designer’s
philosophy and inspiration always begin from the genuine communication with others.
As we listen to the stories of our designers who yearn to provide joy
to users through Samsung Electronics design, we feel hopeful for the creation of
more ‘meaningful designs’ in the future.