Designer Sun Young Oh focuses on words, through fonts or cat flow charts

Sun Young Oh, a graphic designer based in South Korea, spends a lot of time thinking about how to put words together. We first came across Sun Young after seeing her illustration of a cat that functioned as a strange English language exercise – the word ‘cat’ was broken down into other related phrases along the legs, tail, etc. But on further investigation, we found a whole practice built on explorations like this.

Sun Young creates typefaces where letterforms fall apart before your eyes – like a game of dominos – and designs that deconstruct phrases into assorted parts: “I enjoy finding connections in seemingly unrelated elements,” she says.

So where has this linguistic, almost poetic, approach to design come from? We have Germany to thank for some of it. Sun Young spent quite a while in the country, where she learned German and found herself navigating multiple languages. The experience led Sun Young to think about language “differently”, noticing that it isn’t as logical as we’re always led to believe. “Despite being a practical tool for communication, language has this abstract, ambiguous, and sometimes arbitrary aspect.”

Otherwise, Sun Young’s background in fine arts has played a large role in her graphic design and typography. “I constantly blend these two disciplines”, she says. Right now, the designer has a couple of typefaces on the go, and is inspired by how we can push typographic experimentation further. “I’m currently interested in variable fonts that transform typefaces beyond the usual adjustments like weight or angle, something like adding a weird feature or transforming completely.”