Growing up I was encouraged to keep my diverse cultural background a part of me and to treasure its uniqueness, instead of pushing it aside. I am an adopted Korean-American who was raised Jewish. Because of my background, I have been able to experience several different cultures and traditions. As many racist jokes begin, I started with this statement, “A Jew, a Korean and an American walk into a bar...� and then thought about how they would communicate with each other. With this statement in mind, I started to explore different ways of communication and decided to focus on the written letterforms, the alphabet. By exploring the Jewish and Korean letterforms and the similarities and differences between the characters, I created a set of 18 symbols. Although this project relates to me directly, I think this exploration will encourage the audience and other designers to think about the importance of communication and other ways to work around a language barrier.
HANEW