It’s not just in music and series that the Korean wave is making itself known. There’s also a bigger platform for Korean artists worldwide to make themselves known.
One of these artists who are finally getting their due is the Seoul-born Kim Na. She’s a graphic designer and artist who has dedicated herself to some of the most recognizable book covers of the past couple of years. Kim is based in Brooklyn right now. If I mention the Michelle Zauner book ‘Crying in H Mart’ to anyone, they’ll immediately remember the red cover with the noodles. Some of her other works that I loved were the covers for ‘Cannibals in love’ by Mike Roberts, ‘The Cook’ by Maylis De Kerangal and ‘Talking Animals’ by Joni Murphy.
Kim is currently the creative director at US publishing company Farrar, Straus and Griouzx while also being the art director for The Paris Review. She also does freelance editorial work for clients like The New York Times and the New Yorker.
In her collaboration with June Park for the series ‘Panolo Blahnik’ she said this “I was just trying to cheer June up by, you know, sticking a fork in and pretending the breadsticks were little dancing shoes. And that’s how Bread Shoes started. I was just playing with my food. (…) You just want to have fun making work. And if you have side projects where you can have fun, I feel like it takes the burden off of your day job.” (source: The Creative Independent)
One of her most recent works was the cover of the vinyl soundtrack of the A29 film ‘Past Lives’.
This feature first appeared in our 2023 magazine.
