In honor of all that I have learned and accomplished during my time in South Korea, I present to you my postcard passion project, entitled a "Summer in Seoul”.

A semi-passion, semi-required, cumulative project of my time in Seoul, South Korea during the summer of 2023. Follow along on my journey of studying abroad in South Korea for six weeks, through 10 postcards that encapsulate my experiences with creativity and life at a home away from home.

ROLE
Graphic Designer

TIMELINE
June - August 2023
(6 Weeks)

SKILLS
Graphic Design

TOOLS
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Fujifilm Disposable Camera
My Sketchbook :)

Postcard Set 1.png
Postcard Set 2.png
Postcard Set 3.png
Postcard Set 4.png

To begin this story, I must share how everything fell into place. In pursuit of new experiences, I applied to a summer study abroad program at Yonsei University on a whim, and luckily enough I got in! The hard part was convincing my parents to attend but to my surprise, they agreed to let me go through with it.

ENTRY 001: HOW IT STARTED

Practicing my reading skills as I explore the streets in the daytime.

Finding inspiration in my natural encounters with primary colors.

Experiencing South Korea’s public transportation system.

JAN - JUN 2023

 

The rest of my school year zoomed by and soon I was left with one week to pack my life away into 2 luggages. Most importantly, I brought with me: my trusty film camera, my plethora of tiny sketchbooks, and my strong desire to discover all that there is to learn as a 19-year-old about to live alone for the first time in a completely other country.

As I started this journey, I reminded myself to take everything in, and of course, take as many pictures as possible to remember my times here.

June was fading away by the time my first week of the program started. I was intent on making the most of my time and meeting as many people as I possibly could. However, amid the excitement of settling in, I had to remind myself of the moments of peace that allowed me to reflect and create.

A mixed media collage using doodles from my sketchbook and photos from my trip.

My first assignments in my “Intro to Computer
Graphics” class were to play around in Photoshop
and create some sort of collage/digital art piece. I was
thrilled. I had taken this class because it seemed to
be the only class related to art (and because I wanted
to get an easy A), but it turned out to be just what I
needed — an excuse to make some pretty designs
during my time here.

I collected past doodles from my handy sketchbook,
old film pictures I took back home, and combined it
with new concepts, imagery, and love for this new
place I was in.

ENTRY 002: ADRENALINE

Making use of typography, shape, and images to design a digital art piece in three colorways.

JUN 2023

About three weeks into my program, I had gotten quite used to things (well, as much as one could living in a new country alone for the first time). In my classes I was formally re-learning Adobe Illustrator by playing around with patterns and effects, watching and analyzing iconic Korean films like The Housemaid and Joint Security Area, all while studying social psychology on the side. Meanwhile…

ENTRY 003: GETTING SETTLED

Outside of school, a lot of my time was spent visiting as many coffee shops and stationary stores across Seoul all while adding to my café notebook with sketches of my favorite eats and finding design inspiration in real life. I spent every weekend with my roommate traveling farther away from the university and into new neighborhoods ready to fill our tummies and my sketchbook!

Eventually I got into quite a rhythm of life in Seoul, every Thursday after I got out from my final class I would rush to the bus and head over to my favorite neighborhood, Yeonnam-dong, ready to find a new café to cool down in with an iced beverage and journal about my past week. This routine gave me my favorite memories of my time there, as I found the space that I needed to pause and enjoy the moments I had to myself, in the midst of trying to do everything at once.

JUL 2023

This is where messing around with Adobe Illustrator got me.

The six weeks were flying by quickly, I was reaching the point in my program in which there was more time that had passed than I had left. By July 22 I had used up my disposable camera and set out on a solo-adventure to Myeong-dong to develop it. Prior to the trip I had saved a self-scanning photo lab (called Whale Photo Lab if you’d ever like to visit it) that developed film for $5,000 WON, that is $3.46 USD — a price that is almost unheard of in the film community. So, I set out on my solo adventure to the photo lab, where my idea for a “Summer in Seoul” sparked!

ENTRY 004: IT’S ALMOST OVER SO LET’S SEE THE PICTURES

Scanned.

Edited.

Negatives.

JUL 2023

The workers helped me through the process, from scanning to uploading the images. I loved getting to edit each picture however I wanted to and it felt so reminiscent looking at all the memories I captured.

I knew that for my final graphic design project I had to create a set of postcards using past projects and anything we’d like and after seeing all of my film pictures developed it all clicked. I wanted to commemorate my time here in the best way I knew how, through design!

The finalized film pictures.

  • Yonsei University’s Underwood Hall

  • The Streets of Yeonnam

  • The Streets of Hongdae

  • The Yeonnam Bus Stop

  • My local bus stop in Sinchon.

  • The Hongdae bus stop.

  • A corner of restaurants in Yeonnam.

  • Rainy day in Sinchon.

  • The inside of Cafe Tetum.

  • Overlooking Yeonnam (part one.

  • Overlooking Yeonnam (part two).

  • Overlooking Yeonnam (part three).

  • A Sunday night in Myeongdong.

  • August blooms at Yonsei.