2026-01-21
Emma Fitzgerald
Design Dispatch, New York
Daeyun Kim on how movement across disciplines shaped a new way of seeing
For Daeyun Kim, creativity has never belonged to one place. His story moves between worlds—fashion, fine art, graphic design, and advertising—each leaving a trace on how he sees. That constant motion, rather than any single discipline, became his foundation.
In 2025, Kim emerged as one of the most awarded young art directors in the world, winning across the industry’s Big Five—Clio, D&AD, One Show, New York Festival, and the ANDY Awards. But his work feels less like a pursuit of accolades and more like an exploration of perspective— the kind you find only by moving.
Kim left high school early and launched his own fashion boutique in Seoul. That store became his first studio, his first experiment in how visuals affect emotion. “Fashion taught me instinct,” he says. “People react to proportion and touch, but behind that, they respond to feeling.” It was here he realized that creativity could extend far beyond fabric. He wasn’t just designing clothes—he was learning how people connect to meaning.
After fashion came fine art, a space for reflection. Through painting and material studies, Kim began to examine why certain images stay with us. “Art made me slow down,” he says. “It turned creation into observation.” Then came graphic design, where structure and clarity grounded that introspection. “Design taught me logic. Every line had to speak for something.” Together, these stages built what he calls a “layered vision”—instinct, reflection, and structure working in harmony.
Advertising became the place where all those languages met. To Kim, it’s not about selling but about translating human emotion into visual form. His recent campaigns—Starbucks – Unseen Stars, Vaseline – Blue Shield, Heinz – Super Bowl Leftover Recipe, and Google Cloud – Cloud LookBook— each explored a different emotion: recognition, protection, humor, and balance. “The Google Cloud project was about treating technology as invisible art,” he explains. “It asked how data could feel—how something digital could move people.”
At Wieden+Kennedy, Kim worked as a junior art director but refused to let hierarchy define his role. He led creative development across teams and even helped secure new business through his conceptual direction. “At W+K, ideas didn’t belong to anyone,” he says. “The best thought always won. It taught me that clarity is more powerful than position.” That experience solidified his belief that creativity is a collective act— an ecosystem where freedom and trust make ideas stronger.
Kim describes his creative practice as nomadic by nature. Each transition—from one field to another, from one city to the next—has expanded how he thinks visually. “I don’t see movement as change,” he says. “It’s accumulation.” To him, awards are only markers along a longer journey. “What matters is that someone feels something.That’s how I know a piece worked—it travels.”
From Seoul’s fashion district to a New York studio, Daeyun Kim’s vision has been shaped by motion, not by belonging. Every phase—fashion’s instinct, art’s introspection, design’s structure, advertising’s empathy— forms part of what he calls a living language of creativity.“Movement keeps me honest,” he says. “It keeps me curious. Every new place teaches me to see again.”
