Everyday Practice designs an honourable identity for the Achille Castiglioni exhibition

“Everyday Practice” is a rather neutral-sounding phrase in English, but in Korean it’s a whole different ball game. “It’s a combination of words with more social nuances,” says Kwon Joonho, one of three founders of the design studio of the same name. Signifying an experimental medley of digital and print platforms, the studio has continued to impress us after its debut on the site last year. As such, the trio – Joonho, Kim Kyung-chul and Kim Eojin – who initially met for the first time in college, have since 2013 been working together as designers, “agonising over the role that design can play in the society in which we live, and have been seeking social intervention in design through various routes.”

Now with six people employed within the practice, the team have expanded into digital realms to adhere to increasing volumes of web and media-based work – especially that of coding and motion graphics. When we last spoke, the studio had already made its venture into digital with its identity project for the whopping event, 111011101 Content Impact 2018 Showcase, that saw an adaptable and busy design transition effortlessly between the moving and static image. One year later, and things have been dialled up a notch.

On 17 January, Seoul Arts Centre paid tribute to one of the greatest designers of the last century, Achille Castiglioni. In the form of an exhibition, titled Achille Castiglione and Brothers: Master of Italian Design and running until 26 April, the show delves into his momentous career and was entrusted to two of his students, Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto. Everyday Practice was commissioned to create the identity. It was a brief that the team relished. “Castiglioni is an Italian designer who also has a high profile in Korea,” says Joonho, “and his works are much-loved by Koreans. We especially liked his work as a designer who built his own world of design by twisting and reversing existing product grammar.”

Everyday Practice proceeded with a design that respected the designer’s distinguished reputation, “in a way that faithfully showed the world his work, rather than experimental graphics,” says Joonho. Alongside a typeface designed by Pizza Typefaces, titled UltraSolar Hangul Lettering, the team went forth with a select few products chosen from his wide-ranging archive – those that would “show the characteristics well” – followed by colour application and layouts for each product on the poster design. This includes a poster of the iconic Snoopy Table Lamp, which features an enamelled metal reflector and marble base, paired with a colour-matched background, and detailed markings that signify its clever, well-thought-out design.

“Most of the discussion with the client was about the logo type,” explains Joonho, “which will show the title of the exhibition.” Because the designer’s name is also the title of the show, the type thus needed to represent as much and become symbolic of both an iconic creator and the exhibition that will take place. “We proposed a logo that reflects his design methodology, which has twisted and overturned the existing system,” he continues. “Some parts of the letter look very ordinary, but certain parts are carved and overturned, so it can capture the concept of the exhibition well.”

Up next, Everyday Practice will launch its latest design for the Special Exhibition at the Gwangju Democratisation Movement, which runs from April this year through to May 2021 – South Korea’s leading pro-democracy movement. Another iconic and mammoth project, to say the least, yet no challenge is too big for the studio. It will feature a large-scale exhibition in Korea and other countries that also share a “painful history in the process of democratisation”, says Joonho, including Taiwan, Germany and Argentina. “We are conducting an integrated identity that can symbolise the exhibition – it’s agonising to interpret the history of more than 30 years ago as a contemporary design.”