Teaching Philosophy
We are in an era where graphic design has rapidly shifted from print to interact with the physical and digital worlds where real-world objects and artificial objects co-exist. The Graphic Design area is interdisciplinary, engaging in diversified mediums, including fine art, journalism, technology, literature, education, business, communication, etc. The current graphic design embraces experience design, environmental design, service design, human-centered design, participatory design, and speculative design. Now it is evolving to trans-disciplinary design education, practices, and research using creative graphic design. How do we, as designers, teach graphic design to the future generation of designers including makers in the 21st century?
Design educators should guide students to see where they are now and go as designers. I highlight their critical thinking in contemporary media, such as the Spatial Web, including VR and AR, compared with traditional media, such as print. They read related essential papers and essays and discuss how they could become designers in a rapidly changing world. As a designer, I emphasize social responsibility to articulate social issues and present possible solutions to the public through visual communication such as print, website, social media, and digital worlds.
Motivation is the foundation of my teaching. I have students research what they want to do throughout my courses. I encourage them to collaborate on their interests as class projects under the objectives. For instance, many volunteering projects were created, including book publications, websites, and virtual reality for the Web. They include various social issues such as environmental issues, preserving cultural properties, and supporting non-profit organizations such as schools, museums, shelters, etc. Students learn how to engage in society as highly motivated designers with critical thinking and community engagement from those projects.
Collaboration is an emphasized part of my classes. As a designer, I was previously educated and accustomed to working alone. My design experiences in computer science, graphic design, and interactive media to experience design have convinced me that collaboration is essential and inevitable in design education. I enjoy group projects that teach them how to collaborate with other classmates. I plan and organize project outlines based on students’ research interests. Throughout the group projects, I expect to learn how to communicate with classmates, solve visual challenges, manage timelines collaboratively, and provide professional-looking design projects at the final critique.
All my class projects are directly involved in exhibitions, community, and scholarly activities during the semester. I mentor them to research and submit their proposals to various design competitions, research grants, and conferences. For instance, my former students from the course 490/590 Photoshop/Illustrator were displayed at Resident Hall and Harre Union at Valparaiso University to raise sexual harassment issues. They exhibited at “The Title IX Conference” and “Indiana of Sexual Violence College Campuses for Prevention.” My graduate students were selected as presenters for Kawergosk Project, creating photo books and posters for a Syrian refugee camp at a national design conference. Also, my former students at Valparaiso University and the University of Wisconsin Madison received several undergraduate and graduate research grants.
I initiated the exhibition beyond print, the annual fall graphic design exhibition, in 2018. It showcased creative design ideas and solutions in collaboration with creative coding, digital fabrication, and physical integration. I directed, designed, and developed Graphic Design Area Virtual Exhibition at http://www.uwgraphicdesign.com in the fall of 2020. My former student, Anjika Verma, was invited to an international peer-reviewed international conference, 24th International Generative Arts Conference and Exhibition in Italy. It was exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari in Italy. Her research paper was published at the 24th Generative Arts Conference’s proceeding. A class project, “Blank-xous”, created by Josie Cutrara from the course, Art 448, Coding for Graphic Design, was selected at the iDMAa and SECAC hosted by Maryland Institute College of Art in 2022. It is a computational visualization of her over-anxiety during the pandemic to reflect her psychological moments. Also, another project by UW–Madison student Nicole Golownia was selected for ARTIFACT [BOLD], a national biennial exhibition of graphic design, new media, illustration, printmaking, and the expanded field in 2022. Golownia’s “Fashion Intervention: Posters Promoting Sustainable Style” project is an exhibition design she originally developed for the course Art 448 Graphic Design for Exhibitions.
My teaching approach is flexible and based on multiple situations. I have taught various students in South Korea and the United States, including high school graduates, part-time students with daytime jobs, older generations who need a college degree, and high school teachers in
the summer institute. Also, I taught in various academic programs such as art, graphic design, communication, information technology, etc. I taught at four identical institutions, the School of Art Institute of Chicago, a prestigious art school; Chicago State University, a historically multicultural University; Valparaiso University, a private Lutheran liberal arts college; and the University of Wisconsin Madison, a tier 1 research institution. Working with these situations directly, I have learned to adjust my
teaching styles based on level, background, major, culture, etc. Consequently, I can meet the diverse institutional expectations in different programs, departments, schools, and colleges.
Teaching is a calling. I have a strong sense of duty and responsibility for students through mentoring and advising. Students often come to my office for advice about their class challenges and future career. I am welcome to share my previous experience as a former student in computer science in South Korea and how I dealt with that situation to become an internationally recognized typographer and designer. I encourage them not to give up their goal and to keep pursuing possible and practical solutions.
As an educator, I am open-minded, respect students’ novel ideas, and learn from their experimental thinking. Teaching is another way of learning to share the knowledge