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Dongseo International Design Week        

Dongseo International Design Week

September 11, 2019

Earlier this month Beyond had the privilege of speaking at Dongseo University’s annul Design Week conference. The College of Design in Busan, South Korea partnered with Asia Design Center for the Future and hosted a weeks worth of presentations, speaking engagements, and networking events for designers from around the world. Beyond was invited to speak during the lecture series alongside professors and professionals in the industry and spent the week exploring the University and South Korean community.


Michael Prince, third from right, stands with other Design as Change Makers guest speakers. Michael was appointed Visiting Professor of College of Design from 2019 until 2021.

Design Talks – Lecture Series
Beyond President and owner, Michael Prince, presented on how we, as change makers, Design for Social Impact and on different scales (individual, community, and global). Michael spoke alongside respectable leaders in the industry who spoke on similar topics such as Luh Dingbang (Design as an Opportunity Driver), Gu Chuanxi (To Find Problems and Solve Problems), and Ico Miglior (Patterns, Innovation, and Design).


Ico Miglior speaks during Design as Change Maker speaking series.

We All Live in Patterns
In addition to his presentation on Patterns and Innovation, Ico Miglior also had a Lightmorphing exhibition. “Lightmorphing is a concept on which the studio (Migliore + Servetto Architects) has been working on for several years. It gives life to site-specific dynamic installations that interact with the light, whether natural or artificial, and throughout this light they are shaped, intertwined and amplified into the space between. The exhibition allowed students and professionals to get a glimpse into the process and strategy that Migliore’s studio uses. The exhibition was comprised of 425 A6 sketchbooks and a reflective 18 meter wall, resulting in an inhabited space which gives the effect of density and emptiness.

Design Internationalization
The week kicked off with an official Declaration of Design Internationalization. According to the official declaration, Dongseo University’s Design College will become not only a top design school in Korea but will grow to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the most prestigious design colleges around the world. The vision declaration ceremony was held at the DSU Cultural Center on the second day of the 2019 Dongseo International Design Week.

Fostering Design for a Quarter of a Century
President Jekuk Chang, above, stated that “Since its foundation in 1992, Dongseo University has focused on and intensively fostered design as a specialized field. We have invited many excellent professors, and we have done our best to build the necessary educational infrastructure. As a result, our Design College has grown to be the best design school south of the Han River on the Korean peninsula.” He added, “Our Design College is never satisfied and never gets complacent based on prior achievements. To become a globally leading design-specialized university around the world, we declare the 2nd Stage of Design Internationalization.”

Designing for Social Impact
Michael’s presentation explored how designers have continued to change strategies and Design is one of the most powerful tools being used in the 21st century. In order to understand the broader impacts of design, we first have to look beyond immediate results and into the surrounding system that a design will affect. Design is no longer about solving one dimensional problems. Design for social impact, as we are defining it, has to do with measuring user satisfaction at an individual, community and global scale. We want to know: how does this design create more opportunities for change? And at what scale is that change occurring? As a product development firm, we are always thinking about how the products we design impact the modern consumer and how we can use that to create change through those 3 scales.


Michael Prince speaks on the how we can design for social impact.

2019 Global Korea Scholarship (GKS)
In August, Dongseo also hosted the closing ceremony of the 2019 Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) for African and Latin American Undergraduate Students. Over seventy students from 24 countries in Africa and Latin America celebrated successfully completed the 5-week scholar program. Four partner universities were selected to operate the scholarship program and invite participating students: Dongseo University in the field of Computer Engineering; Chonnam National University in the field of Material Science and Engineering; Chonbuk National University in the field of Animal Biotechnology; and Kangwon National University in the field of Korean Language & Culture Education. Dongseo University invited 20 scholarship students from 18 universities in 10 Latin American countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Bolivia, Dominican Republic and Paraguay).


Thank you to Donseou University and all the speakers and student body! We hope to be back with our global designer family soon.

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