Bohuy Kim’s “strange but splendid” poster designs

South Korean designer Bohuy Kim avoids defining himself by a certain style but rather sees his work as revealing “the characteristics, values and approaches” he has. “I think the driving force making me continue my work is the idea of ’insufficiency’. I feel insufficient in what I’m making, which makes me produce things over and over,” explains Bohuy. “Therefore I still try to express the designs I have thought of with a lot of various methods rather than searching for my style.”

Bohuy runs a design studio called Odd Hyphen, and his portfolio is full of varied and interesting projects, but poster design and typography is what he’s drawn to most. Working on self-iniated projects allowed the designer to always be making something in between client projects. Even now, despite having a steady flow of work, Bohuy still creates posters for Visual Impact a project he defines as an event he created himself, “like my own festival” and “literally means to make something visually shocking”. At first Bohuy started out on his own, but now collaborates with friends to make creating eye-catching posters. “We usually create outcomes using different materials and methods,” says Bohuy. “The topic is always changing and we make up different ‘performances’ to go with the topic.”

Bohuy’s work experiments with colour, typography and graphics, often using shapes in different compositions to create busy outcomes. “What I want to convey [in my work] is the bigger picture, as something strange but splendid,” says Bohuy. “I know it’s little a bit vague but I feel like that defines my life as a designer.”