“Being surrounded by like-minded people was a beautiful experience. The course helped me to understand various methods of developing my work – from traditional to digital processes – via diverse workshops and briefs. My time spent at Brighton has really helped me to find what I’m really interested in when it comes to graphic design.”
Hi Jin. Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences
“My work primarily starts with the personal experiences and thoughts that I have been gathering. Further expanding with contemporary and social issues, found through my researching, which is quite important process for my work. I gathered everything/anything: from reading material to objects experienced in my personal life, in the final project mainly working with horses.
“Plus, I think a lot about materials and materiality, since I think they have huge impact on the society (even though almost everything has become digital), I find and used visual elements for my research, which brings more contents and context into my work. Furthermore, I think although my work touches on delicate social issues, I do not believe I would be able to set the social justice correctly so instead my work focuses on making the problems in society visible. By doing this, more people will be aware of social issues and can construct opinions of their own from my work. For example, the final project is about horses. When constructing my final piece I started with my personal affection towards horses, which developed into the horses becoming a personal metaphor of hopes and dreams to the future. The project then further intended for people to redefine their own ‘horseness’, this being a direct quote from James Joyces’ Ulysses.
“I usually get my influences from books by visiting libraries and independent book stores. As well as museums and galleries which are also a really good place for me to be inspired.”
How have you found your course and time at Brighton?
“Being a student of the University of Brighton has been one of the best memories of my life. Honestly the course wasn’t easy, which required a lot of dedication to my work but also being purely focused on design is something I really like. Being surrounded by like-minded people was such a beautiful experience. The course especially helped me to understand various methods of developing my work – from traditional to digital processes – via diverse workshops and briefs. Collectively, my time spent at Brighton University has really helped me to find what I’m really interested in when it comes to graphic design with the final year.
“Also I’m really grateful to the tutors and technicians. All of them are very supportive and encouraged me to produce a level of work I am happy with. They are amazing.”
How did you choose your course – why did you choose to study Graphic Design?
“Drawing and painting has always been my passion. But initially I studied as a history major for university. However, I found history is deeply related to contemporary issues but outside of the professionals, people do not know much about it. So instead, I wanted to make these contemporary issues graphical and accessible to a public audience. Making historic facts more visible by visual materials. Also, when I visited the graphics’ degree show before I enrolled in the course, seeing all the different works, I found that this course really suited me.”
What are your plans after graduation?
“I want to start my career as a designer as part of a graphic design studio, because I think I can learn different things through working in the real world. I want to use my designs to communicate with people, which I think is a key fundamental of graphic design. And in a few years time, I plan to further my study by pursuing MA degree in Europe or the States.”
Find out about studying Visual Communication courses at Brighton
