Colourful cut-outs are the building blocks of Charry Kyung’s joyful, geometric designs

When designer Charry Kyung steps away from her desk, she likes to take a stroll around unfamiliar neighborhoods, taking in all of the “mysterious shops and signs” and observing things that often get overlooked — like the different species of flowers in people’s gardens. “Old stationery stores are also a favourite place of mine,” she says. “I'm inspired by all the wacky colours, typography, and strange graphic shapes I stumble upon in my observations.”

Nothing goes unnoticed; the designer keeps a mental scrapbook of all of the shades and forms she encounters. Later, these feed into her colourful designs, inspired by Matisse’s geometric forms. Since moving into product and lifestyle design, Charry has also built a collection of mundane, obsolete, and odd objects. “To me, every object has a story and design value, and I like to collect beautiful and useless things to pull out when I need inspiration.” The designer likes to keep track of references on an ongoing inspiration board. Live on her website, it includes images of everything from food to chairs (which we’ve been loving at It's Nice That) — a window into her inner creative world, aptly titled ‘What's in my head’.

Much like her melange of influences, where “creativity comes from curiosity and observation”, Charry is often flipping between digital and analogue, exploring new techniques for her colourful brand identities, posters, packaging and publications. Dancing across every format, whether in print or on screen, her wonderful world of Matisse-style cut-outs always start as the building blocks for her joyful, technicolour designs.