In the world of design, where precision and perfection often reign supreme, Taekhan Yun stands out as a beacon of tenderness and imperfection. His work, a testament to the power of slowness and humanity, challenges the notion that design must be a rigid, controlled process. Instead, Yun embraces a method that allows ideas to form slowly, through drawing, collaboration, and making, as ways of staying with what is fragile and unresolved. This approach, which he calls 'slow design', makes space for intuition and unexpected outcomes, opening up a new way of thinking about design that is both personal and shared, and evolving.
What makes Yun's work particularly fascinating is his ability to find the human trace in a hyper-productive design culture. In an era where designs are shared and replicated at an unprecedented pace, Yun focuses on the relationships between people, emotions, memories, and a sense of human warmth. This is evident in his projects, such as the Chair for Kids and Birdhouse by Kids, where children's drawings become active tools within the design process, and their imagination and object-making remain closely connected. By working with children, Yun gently pushes against fixed ways of seeing and making, opening space for other forms of attention and relationships to form through design.
One of the key aspects of Yun's work is his embrace of imperfection. In his projects, imperfection remains visible rather than edited out, and the handmade process holds time within it. Hesitation, repetition, accident, and revision become a way of thinking through making, allowing forms and ideas to remain, evolve, and transform over time. This slowness allows for the discovery of new stories and forms, and it is through this process that Yun's work expands his thinking in a better direction, allowing him to follow intuition and deepen the work itself.
In my opinion, Yun's work is a powerful reminder of the importance of slowness and imperfection in design. It challenges the notion that design must be a rigid, controlled process, and instead advocates for a method that allows ideas to form slowly, through drawing, collaboration, and making. This approach, which he calls 'slow design', makes space for intuition and unexpected outcomes, and it is through this process that Yun's work becomes a kind of listening practice, treating emotion, memory, and imperfection not as secondary material, but as the starting point for making.
What many people don't realize is that Yun's work is not just about creating beautiful objects, but also about creating a healthier world. By embracing slowness and imperfection, Yun's work promotes a more open perspective and a more affirmative sensibility, where multiple perspectives can coexist and thrive. This is a powerful message, and one that is especially relevant in today's fast-paced world, where the small irregularities that make objects feel alive are often overlooked.
