Style combination · Pairs well

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography × Seoul Independent Graphic Design

Ahn Sang-soo freed Hangul from the square in 1985, and Sulki & Min have gone further back, to Cho Young-jae's 1976 proposal to restructure Hangul for typewriters, a study they say has rarely been discussed with the depth it deserves, and to the origins of unsquared Hangul; set a hanging, de-squared headline in a centred one-colour poster to join the generations.

From the research on Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene)

Mix them and make something Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Seoul Independent Graphic Design

Large blue geometric Korean lettering tops a cream poster filled with symmetrical blue, red and yellow circles, semicircles and bars. Tapering vertical panels and blue horizontal steps create the illusion of a corridor receding toward the centre. — AI-generated by Stylogeny from the recipe below, and checked against it: the type from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography, the form from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography, the composition from Seoul Independent Graphic Design. Not a real or historical work.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene)

Type from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography: Experimental & distorted
Geometric sans
Colour from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography: Geometric primitives
Rectilinear
Composition from Seoul Independent Graphic Design: Repetition & rhythm
Central symmetry
Surface from Seoul Independent Graphic Design: Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Out-of-Square Hangul Typography

Hello

Syne; Out-of-Square Hangul Typography used Ahn Sang-soo typeface and Isang-che, Mir-che and Mano-che

Text · Seoul Independent Graphic Design

Graphic design by Seoul's small, self-run studios, which from about 2005 chose to stay small. They design for low-budget culture (exhibitions, festivals, humanities books) and for their own imprints and journals. Typography carries the work: Hangul is reshaped within or beyond its syllable blocks, set beside Latin as one system and enlarged into the picture. Layouts are often centred, in one colour, with circles, repetition and letters treated as objects. Runs are short, in offset, risograph or silkscreen.

Zen Kaku Gothic New; Seoul Independent Graphic Design used Favorit Hangul (Yoon Mingoo with Dinamo, 2019), a Hangul companion to Dinamo's Latin Favorit, part of the type industry's turn to multi-script families and Protoform, Sulki & Min's first Korean font family, drawn by the designers themselves

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Out-of-Square Hangul Typography, with a counter-accent from Seoul Independent Graphic Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Out-of-Square Hangul Typography Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene)

#f5f3ee ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#f2c12e accent · 18%
#2448d8 accent · 14%
#d7261e accent · 10%
#ff5aa5 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f5f3ee;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #f2c12e;
  --accent-2: #2448d8;
  --accent-3: #d7261e;
  --accent-4: #ff5aa5;
  --font-display: "Syne", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene): These are living, named designers and studios, so never attribute a generated poster or book to Sulki & Min, Everyday Practice or any other studio, and never prompt an image model with their names. Image models often produce pseudo-Hangul: have every Hangul word written or checked by a Korean reader, or leave the text out. Do not paste hanbok, dancheong patterns or a taegeuk emblem on as decoration to signal 'Korean'; where the studios touch such ideas (Sulki & Min's patterns on Hangul vowels and yin-yang), they work them out through the structure of the letters. Choi Sung Min warns that the pressure on Korean designers to find a 'true self' is a problematic Orientalism, and this scene works through type and concept, not national motifs.

The two styles

Oversized black and red Korean letterforms fill an off-white vertical cover. A blue ring above a long blue rectangle resembles a lowercase i near the lower left.

1985–present · East Asia Out-of-Square Hangul Typography A Korean typographic movement that frees Hangul from the equal square in which metal and photo type had always set each syllable. Beginning with Ahn Sang-soo's 1985 typeface, jamo keep fixed sizes so syllables vary in height and lines hang from a shared top edge; letters are built from circle, dot and straight stroke, and in posters and the magazine Bogoseo/Bogoseo they are enlarged until they become the picture. 2005–present · East Asia Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene) Graphic design by Seoul's small, self-run studios, which from about 2005 chose to stay small. They design for low-budget culture (exhibitions, festivals, humanities books) and for their own imprints and journals. Typography carries the work: Hangul is reshaped within or beyond its syllable blocks, set beside Latin as one system and enlarged into the picture. Layouts are often centred, in one colour, with circles, repetition and letters treated as objects. Runs are short, in offset, risograph or silkscreen.