2025-12-02
Daniel Hartman
Design Dispatch, New York
In the evolving dialogue between legacy and innovation, few brands are as emblematic of enduring craftsmanship as Tiffany & Co. And few designers are more attuned to translating that legacy for today’s digital landscape than Sun Min Lee.
As a digital designer on Tiffany’s Global Creative Team in New York, Lee plays a pivotal role in shaping how the brand is experienced across web, email, and clienteling platforms in over 30 countries. Working under the creative leadership of Chief Brand Creative Officer Hector Muelas, Vice President of Creative Yannis Henrion, and Design Director Sunho Lee, her work bridges timeless elegance and contemporary behavior, ensuring that Tiffany’s heritage is not only preserved—but also reimagined—for a global, digital-first audience.
Lee’s design fluency is rooted in a multidisciplinary background. Before earning her BFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, she studied Consumer Science and Industrial Design in Korea—an early foundation that shaped her sensitivity to how users think, feel, and interact with design. That training also translated into award-winning student work, where she began exploring how storytelling, behavior, and visual language could converge.
One such project was “AMY’S WINEHOUSE_Promotional website for Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black”, which received an Honorable Mention in the New Talent Annual 2022. Designed as a promotional site for the album, Lee created an immersive environment that mimicked the atmosphere of Amy Winehouse’s songs—bars, clubs, and raw emotional settings. Incorporating Winehouse’s tattoo patterns as graphic motifs, the site allowed users to request songs as if they were in a live performance space. The project reflected Lee’s early commitment to designing experiences that are not only visually striking but emotionally resonant.
Her experimental edge also extended into print. With “Do Not Disturb. We Are Having a Feast”, another Honorable Mention in the same competition, she designed an interactive poster that addressed the tension between human curiosity and animal life. By covering the type with nuts, she created a playful system where squirrels, while eating, revealed the hidden message: “Do not disturb, we are having a feast.” The project demonstrated her ability to merge humor, empathy, and interaction—qualities that continue to shape her digital design work today.
Lee also explored social impact through design. In “NYC Park Size Comparison”, an Honorable Mention infographic poster, she visualized disparities in green space between wealthy and under-resourced neighborhoods in New York City. Using tree leaves as a central motif, she transformed data into an accessible visual story—underscoring her belief that design can clarify inequities and spark awareness.
Today, those early experiments inform her professional practice at Tiffany & Co. Since joining the company, Lee has contributed to some of the brand’s most high-profile digital initiatives. She oversaw and executed the core digital design elements of the Tiffany Wonder exhibition dotcom site in Tokyo—an immersive storytelling experience featured in Wallpaper, Vogue Singapore, and Harper’s Bazaar India. She played a key role in the Blue Book High Jewelry digital experience and the launch of the Tiffany x Daniel Arsham HardWear page, blending narrative and UI design to create emotionally resonant experiences.
Her expertise also extends to global retail milestones. From Milan to Ginza, Düsseldorf to Cancun, Lee has supported localized digital rollouts for major flagship openings—developing cohesive visual assets while tailoring them to regional expectations. Her attention to both macro systems and micro interactions makes her a linchpin in maintaining Tiffany’s brand integrity at scale.
“Heritage isn’t static,” Lee says. “It’s a dialogue between past and present—and design is the medium that makes that dialogue visible.”
Within a compact yet agile digital team, Lee wears many hats: designing responsive web modules, localizing email campaigns for international markets, performing QA across multiple languages, and managing timelines for special occasion launches like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. She is also currently collaborating on an in-store coloring book experience for children—a tactile initiative that reflects Tiffany’s evolving engagement with next-generation audiences.
Whether she’s finessing the layout of a microsite or reviewing email creative for 30 different markets, Lee’s work is defined by intention, precision, and empathy. Her designs speak not only to the eye, but also to emotion—inviting users into a world where luxury feels thoughtful, accessible, and alive.
“Design can make luxury feel personal,” she says. “It’s about crafting a moment—whether someone is walking past a store in Ginza or opening an email in Copenhagen—that feels beautifully considered.”
As the definition of luxury continues to expand, Sun Min Lee exemplifies what it means to carry heritage forward—not by preserving it in glass, but by translating it into experiences that move, speak, and resonate worldwide.
