Since founding Designsori in 2008 what philosophy and journey have guided your operation of this media platform?

Hello I am Kim Doyoung CEO of Designsori. Over the past twenty years through design awards and branding projects I have continuously asked the question what does design leave behind. When I founded Designsori in 2008 I felt a strong sense of responsibility to move beyond existing media structures that consumed design only as finished outcomes. I believed it was necessary to record the flow of context time and thought that creators encounter. Designsori was born as a vessel where the voice left by a single designer could become a record passed down through generations. I see myself less as a media operator and more as an archive director who preserves designers time and philosophy in the form of memory. Recording their voices so they do not disappear and opening paths for them to become sparks for future creation is the reason Designsori and I exist.

What concerns and needs led you to decide on a major rebranding after 17 years?

For 17 years, Designsori has remained consistent in recording designers’ voices. However, compared to the depth of its philosophy, the vessel itself needed to be capable of holding much more. As our scope expanded beyond Korea to global designers, and as our content grew from interviews into a broader archive, we recognized the need for a new brand identity with a stronger language and system. This rebranding was not a simple visual refresh. It was a process of rewriting the existential question, ‘What does Designsori leave behind?’ Our mission to record the essence of design and leave those stories in history became both the starting point and the standard for the rebranding.

How did Designsori’s long held mission and philosophy shape the direction and structure of this rebranding?

Designsori philosophy is clear. Design is not an outcome but a process not a message but a voice not a moment but an essence. This philosophy became the central axis of the entire rebranding process. We sought to reveal more clearly the unique depth of text as a medium. Text is the most honest tool for recording the weight of time that images cannot convey. Designsori exists to record not just what designers make but the accumulated thoughts traces of failure and choice and the human intensity embedded in the process. The rebranding engraved this philosophy consistently across visual structure web interface and overall tone and manner.

< Designed by lllayer >

Four branding companies participated in this rebranding as a consortium. What intention and strategic reasoning led to this structure?

We viewed the rebranding of Designsori not as creating a beautiful brand but as designing strata of records. To encompass archives discourse media operation and the global design ecosystem we believed one perspective alone was insufficient. Therefore partners with expertise in their respective fields including Layer Sunny Island and Ockhams Branding came together to form a layered structure. Layer reimagined Designsori through new colors and the website. Sunny Island created a logo designed to carry the next ten years. Ockhams Branding strengthened the essence of Designsori content through in depth interviews with designers around the world. This consortium was an essential combination for materializing Designsori philosophy.

You mentioned the concept of strata of memory. How do you interpret the meaning of slow records in the digital age?

In the digital age records are consumed faster and more lightly. Precisely for that reason I believe slow records have become more necessary than ever. In environments dominated by speed images remain rather than information sensations rather than facts and context easily disappears. Design however is inherently an act built through layers of time and creators experience far more thought failure and moments of transition than what appears in the final outcome. What Designsori calls strata of memory is a structure that captures this disappearing time and a media method that transforms individual voices into generational records. We do not aim to be a media outlet that produces content but one that builds a structure of accumulation that endures over time.

As the digital world moves toward instant consumption slow records function as a mechanism to preserve the essence of designers without distortion. This is not merely an archive of the past but a foundation of knowledge that provides future creators with reasons to think again. Designsori archive centered structure is not resistance against the flow of time but a strategic choice to protect what is essential yet easily lost within it. Design that is not recorded is ultimately no different from something that never existed. That is why Designsori focuses on building records that endure time leaving evidence of existence and allowing that evidence to become the basis for thought in the next era.

< Designed by Sunnyisland >

What symbolism and brand message are embedded in the newly completed Designsori logo?

The Designsori logo is the clearest visualization of what we leave behind as an archive media. It contains the image of design accumulating as layers overlap and records stacking to create the thickness of time. The structure where two letter Ds overlap to form an S intuitively shows the identity of Designsori where countless designers voices gather into a single sound. The three dimensional sense is not a simple tag or logo but symbolizes the brand direction of a continuously expanding archive. The logo is both a vessel for the records Designsori will build over the next decade and a compressed visual expression of why we exist.

Based on what criteria and philosophy were brand identity elements such as color typography and visual systems constructed?

The brand colors were designed around orange and monotone. Orange symbolizes the temperature of creation the energy of exploration and the vitality of voices. Monotone represents the solidity of records factuality and the calm structure of an archive. For typography we selected Noto Sans KR for Korean and Kudos Sans for English to strengthen clarity as a text based medium and ensure international consistency. For Designsori typography is not decoration but a tool of record. The breath spacing and balance of letters were all designed based on the principle of text where thought is clearly visible. The overall system aims not for fast consumption but for records that endure across generations.

The Designsori Manifesto presented as the core sentence of this rebranding clearly reveals the brand’s fundamental attitude. How would you explain its meaning?

At the center of this rebranding lies the Designsori Manifesto. We do not create content. We create memories that endure time. Designsori is not a media that consumes the surface of outcomes but one that sees the time hidden behind them. We record the thoughts choices contexts failures and the stories of people who endured them all until design was born. Design that is not remembered is forgotten and design that is not recorded ultimately disappears. Therefore record becomes preservation and preservation becomes legacy. Leaving this legacy is the reason Designsori exists. This is not a simple declaration but a standard we will never let go of and the deepest root of our brand philosophy.

Designsori is building deep connections with designers across Asia beyond Korea. What role do you believe Designsori should play within the Asian design community going forward?

Through engaging with designers across Asia we realized that Asian design is not a single language but a vast spectrum layered with different histories cultures and sensibilities. I hope Designsori becomes not a platform that unifies this diversity into one norm but an intellectual crossroads where different thoughts and contexts intersect and expand. Each region in Asia has its own design philosophy and visual grammar yet beneath them all lies the shared question of why this design exists.

Our role is to record these questions and connect the voices left by designers from different regions into an accumulated discourse. Beyond interviews we aim to build an archive of Asian design temporality sensibility and social context and deliver it to the global design community. Ensuring design is not defined solely by market speed preserving the deep thinking of contemporary Asian designers and positioning it within international discourse and allowing that accumulation to strengthen the presence of Asian design. That is the meaningful role I believe Designsori must fulfill.

Finally, what kind of media do you hope Designsori becomes after the rebranding, and how do you envision the next ten years?

Designsori aims to grow beyond a media that conducts interviews into an institution that preserves the essence of design. Rather than following the speed of trends we will continue to protect the essence of design through slow and solid records. We hope to leave todays voices as tomorrows history and create a virtuous cycle where those records inspire future creators. This rebranding organized the past seventeen years of the brand and became the opening sentence for building the philosophical media structure Designsori must expand over the next decade. We will continue to listen more deeply record more honestly and never stop working to ensure design remains a cultural and creative legacy.