Ran Park explores the chaos of "Konglish" in a new zine

Konglish is the use of English words, or words derived from English words, in a Korean context. This simple premise was the concept behind Berlin-based designer Ran Park’s zine, Lost In Konglish. “The inspiration is a little bit whimsical,” explains the designer. “One day, I heard a gentleman explaining to a foreign tourist what a ‘banana’ was called in Korean. Phonetically it was the same, which made me think of the subtle alterations in the Korean language over the past decades.”

The publication shows the words that are phonetically pronounced the same alongside the Korean and English letterforms. The layouts are chaotic, the words smeared across the pages. “I decided to make my own 21st century version of a ‘Konglish’ script book that conveys this delicate phenomenon. You get to see both written forms of Korean and English words within the book and the mixed forms of them which depict the changes,” explains Ran. “This publication is mainly aimed at foreign people as it is written in English, so now I am planning to create something for both Koreans and non-native Koreans.”