Yang Kim

Executive Creative Director

Yang Kim changes minds. Our Creative Director, she is our top visual communicator, always able to find fresh, startling ways of seeing and showing. Her ability to understand and interpret the needs and desires of our clients saves us all time and consistently brings home our bacon, jump-starts our engines, without ever resorting to a single cliche. As a student at Carnegie Mellon University and consistently throughout her career, Kim’s work has been recognized by her peers for its clarity, distinctiveness, humanity, and charm. Her no-nonsense style, her wit, and her devotion to her work have earned her long-standing relationships with clients whose businesses have grown to rely on her influence. With a long list of design awards and publications to her name, Kim has made her mark on contemporary graphic design, now serving as lecturer and judge to the world’s most prestigious graphic arts organizations and schools. Her broad experience includes designing everything from identity systems and complex corporate product literature programs to kicky little cocktail napkins. Among her favorite and most demanding clients and projects now are son Bruno, daughters Toki and Lulu, and the home she and Kevin make for them.

Yang is co-author of Brand Identity Essentials, a book about brand and graphic identity.

Contributor to RockPaperInk, Rebrand, Core77, and DesignEnvy.

Speaking
A! Desino Mexican Design Conference
AIGA Las Vegas
AIGA Nebraska
AIGA Chicago
IABC Keynote
SEEK: Northern Illinois University
Kendall College of Art and Design
Ferris State University

Juries
Rebrand
AIGA Las Vegas
AIGA Nebraska
Art Director's Club of Cincinnatti
Potlach Annual Report Show
AdClub

Recognition
Full list

Affiliations
AIGA, National nominating committee
APDF
DMI
Board member, UICA
Board member,
St. Cecilia Music Center

Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Harvard Business School
Executive Education


Posts by Yang Kim

I've always wanted to reference Miró's painting, Ceci est la couleur de mes rêves. News of our inclusion in in HOW Color In Design 2011 gives me a perfect opportunity. Color is emotional, intuitive, complicated, informative, and architectural – all at the same time. More
We're proud to be featured among our talented colleagues and friends in HOW Magazine's 2011 International Design Awards issue.Three of our projects earned recognition: the ArtPrize commemorative poster, Amway Business Innovations "iPapers," and Cumberland "Modern American Landscapes" ad series. Here's an enthusiastic jump for joy. More
At the AIGA Bright Lights event in April, I was fortunate to see my long-time mentor and friend Steve Frykholm receive THE most important honor that a designer can get.The event was a star-studded affair in a room filled with very important design people. Debbie Millman sang and she was fantastic (more guts than I have). More
I recently had the honor of joining the American Advertising Federation West Michigan chapter's prestigious Silver Medal club. AAF chapters around the U.S. More
A little late as usual is this year’s Peopledesign holiday mailing to clients and friends. This year we decided to make gift tags. It seems like nice wrapping paper is easy to come by, but gift tags are difficult to find. More
We are happy to be selected and have seven of our recent projects in the American Graphic Design Awards in the GDUSA’s November 2010 issue. See our winner's gallery on GDUSA.Gordon Kaye at GDUSA said it best… “…Our winners may well feel uncomfortable with the concept, but they are elite in the best sense. More
Check us out in The Best of Brochure Design 11. We’ve been in a few Best of… books, but I’m sure this is the Best Best book. It's always an honor to be included among talented designers. More
Recently the Society of Typographic Arts (STA) asked me to design a letter for their annual holiday party and auction. In all, STA reached out to 26 designers for this project—including Design Kitchen, Jessica Hische, Mark Simonson, and Rick Valicenti—one for each letter of the alphabet. Of course, I chose “Y” as my subject. More
See our ArtPrize promotional posters in the September/October 2010 issue of HOW magazine’s Self-Promo Design Annual. And thanks HOW for taking a better picture than we did. More
Thank you Print magazine and Gary Fogelson and Phil Lubliner for selecting our work to be included in the Print Regional Design Annual 2010 issue. After a long hiatus while working on our book, it feels good to be back in the competitions and recognized by our peers. You can see our inaugural ArtPrize work in the issue. More
Engaging a design firm to work on a new project—a website, for example—is a little like embarking on a trip into the wild. In that scenario, would you plan for the best or the worst case scenario? Personally, when facing such a trip, I'd channel my inner Bear Grylls from "Man vs. Wild" and plan for the worst. More
The other day I was watching the new BMW Z4 commercial with our son Bruno. When it was over, we both looked at each other and had the same thought: toy cars! We can do this with toy cars and huge paper!So we got right down to work. Here are the results. More
Who says winning awards gets old? It always feels good. We're happy to say that we've been kicking some butt in this arena recently – and it's not even awards season. In the Creativity 38 Annual Awards competition, we have 12 award-winning projects, five of which won a Silver, three Gold, and one Platinum. More
There is an increasing number of great (and I mean great) tools that help people produce their own designed works. These help-yourself and off-the-shelf design tools and templates are pretty good these days, and getting better. At the AIGA Conference in Denver, I saw a presentation given by Shoshana Berger and Grace Hawthorne, co-founders of Ready-Made Magazine. More