Blink and you’ll miss the tiny details in Dokho Shin’s book design

When Dokho Shin first moved to Berlin in 2017, he sent emails out to a list of publishers titled “New designer, new design” aiming to get involved with projects; “Of course, nothing happened”, he tells us. We can safely say that those who missed the email lost out on exploring some very interesting projects. Today, Dokho is working across multiple projects, self-initiated and commercial, focusing on designing publications and exhibition identities – including a project for one of the publishing houses he emailed five years ago!

While Dokho assures that he doesn’t have a certain visual style, instead preferring to focus on the context of each project, there are one or two traits that unite his work. Namely, how he subtly embraces unconventional book design, and his dedication to the tiny details that bring this approach to life.

Last year, Dokho worked on an artist book by Sunmin Park. Titled Out of (Con)Text, Sunmin wanted to make a publication that showed the relationship between her works, “which looked like fragments”, says Dokho. In collaboration with Sunmin, Dokho in turn designed a title in which the content unfolds around the middle of the book. “So, the index page listing the works in the middle of the book is the axis. The reading experience, therefore, doesn’t have to follow the linear direction,” the designer tells It’s Nice That. Dokho went a step further and visualised this structure via tiny hidden text on the inside part of the book spine. Elsewhere, crisscrossing lines, suggesting nonlinear pathways, appeared across the book’s inner cover. This kind of detail can be spotted throughout Dokho’s work, if you’re looking closely.

For instance, in another archive book for a festival, (How) do we (want to) work (together) (as (socially engaged) designers (students and neighbours)) (in neoliberal times)?, Dokho created a string bookmark – “It’s quite unusual that a softcover book has a string bookmark”, he says – that is actually an armband for entering a festival. Aiming to keep the work functional, all the keywords from within the text are on the string bookmarks, so you can directly go to the pages you want to read after checking them.

When we ask Dokho what makes a piece of graphic design successful for him, he says it depends on the environment and work conditions on the project. “For example,” he says, “if I got a commission from a conservative-traditional publishing house, just making the indent of paragraphs the opposite direction or trying unusual typesetting would mean massive success for me, even though they are such an insignificant gesture.” Dokho says this slightly transgressive approach is visible only in small corners of his work, via personal jokes “so not many people recognise it possibly”. “But it gives me a strong motivation to work continuously”, he asserts.

Looking forward, Dokho wants to balance his commercial and personal projects and continue to create identities or posters that are ambiguous, open to multiple interpretations from the audience. “And one more [goal]”, he adds, is to deliver “a similar proportion of works between South Korean and German clients”. While the designer continues to add to his expanding client base, if you work at a publisher and get an email from Dokho, we highly recommend opening it. If it means you get a chance to peek through his considered, detailed portfolio, you’re in for a real treat.