WORDS BY ALEKSANDRA VORONENKO
Top quotation: from an article written by Jenna Wortham for Wired online magazine
Ji Lee: The Bubble Project
Ji Lee is a graphic designer and visual communicator who is now working for Facebook. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved with his family to Sao Paulo, Brazil at the age of 10. Later in his life, Lee moved to New York where he started studying at renowned Parsons School of Design. Initially being inspired by such outstanding artists as Picasso and Van Gogh and being interested in fine arts, Ji Lee got into the Fine Art program, but he soon realized that not all the people in this field end up being successful artists, on the opposite quite many struggle finding a job that would satisfy both their creative and financial needs. With that in mind, he switched to Graphic Design and Communications program. After getting the university degree, Ji Lee was working in the industry with image and type creating printed materials as well as working
on brands’ identities. Taking part in the Innovation in Communication Award organized by advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi in New York was an important milestone in Ji Lee’s creative career as it made it possible for him to work as an art director for this agency for about four years. Later in his life, Lee also worked as a creative director at the Google until in 2011 he became a part of a Facebook & Instagram team where he works as a creative strategist until now. In one of his interviews, Ji Lee mentioned that during his last year of university when students usually organize an exhibition showcasing their work, he was approached by Stefan Sagmeister – who was already wellknown at that point – and that interested in Lee’s recent work, Sagmeister offered him a job. Since Ji Lee just accepted another job with a design company, he politely turned the of-
“I wanted to change the dynamic of advertising from a corporate monologue into a public dialogue,” said Lee, “so people would be active participants rather than passive viewers.”
fer down. Nevertheless, they developed strong mentoring relationship over the next few years. The approach of making things shareable and interactive when creating adverts and any content in general is becoming more and more widespread these days giving a voice not only to creators but to ordinary people as well. Apart from working in companies, Ji Lee was dedicating his spare time to developing his own creative projects that contributed significantly to his career and shaped the way society approaches some things such as advertising and public art. Many of Ji Lee’s personal work is created with the emphasis on interaction with the audience as it is with his famous Bubble Project. Frustrated from the fact that most brilliant advertisement ideas were killed almost immediately by agencies’ clients as too innovative or risky - not giving Lee any creative
Bubble project exists as an independent creature that is constantly being fueled by individuals around the globe who place empty speech stickers on top of the ads in their cities and by the ones who scribble a sentence in and capture it to post online. Since the movement was so widely accepted and further developed by many people in different locations, Ji Lee collected some of the “improved” ads into a book named “Talk Back: The Bubble Project.”
Bottom quotation: Kevin Finn in conversation with Ji Lee for the Open Manifesto #7
garding the subject of advertisement, others used the white space to show their creativity, some were simply making fun. Even though the Bubble Project was considered as vandalism that is illegal, no authorities took action against Ji Lee whose personality was already identified as of the one who started this movement. This is because the project gained popularity very quickly and people started printing and sticking the speech bubbles themselves in the cities across the whole world. It was out of control. Now, the
Photographs are taken from the official page of the Bubble Project on Flickr
freedom - the Bubble project started. Here, Ji Lee is owing the concept and acts as a silent distributor, while ordinary people become the artists who have a chance to anonymously say something to the world they live in. This provocative project was made of thousands sticky speech bubble stickers that were placed on top of advertisement pieces all around the New York city encouraging people to come and write whatever they want. Some passersby were expressing their negative opinions and attitudes re-
Ji Lee believes that because of fast-paced development of Internet and digital devices “The traditional method of one-way broadcast doesn’t work any more. The content agencies are creating has to be retweeted, liked, shared, and pinned. This gives consumers the power to make the message heard…”