My philosophy on design and how I see the world

Hello Everyone!

My name is David Hwang and I am currently finishing up my last semester in college at San Jose State University. I am pursuing a Bachelor of Science, in Business Marketing and a minor in Graphic Design.

If you know me or have been following me for a while you are probably familiar that I have dabbled in the fashion industry and run my own clothing brand. This year as I come closer to closing another chapter in my life I have been reflecting a lot and refining my philosophy on what it means to be a designer, learner, and human being. After a lot of conversations and reflecting with my peers and creative community, I wanted to share my design and life philosophy: finding beauty within the mundane and the broken.

Finding beauty within the mundane.

A friend asked me recently as we were hiking, “what is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” As I was thinking about this question over a span of a couple of days, I realized that I found the little things in my daily mundane life beautiful. When I walk down the street and find a crack that perfectly splits down the building walls. The light and shadows dancing in and around the cracks as the sun set in different directions. The contrasting texture from inside the cracks and the wall — coarse and cold interior contrasted with the smoother and warm exterior texture. Of course, the idea of ‘finding beauty within the mundane life’ exists outside of the cracks and wall example. As I thought about the question my friend asked me, it helped me realize how I see the world through this “lens”. It’s also very easy to get caught up in the mundanity of life — living the 9 to 5 work life, driving the same roads to get to work, talking with the same people you’ve known for 10+ years, and the list can go on — but by observing the ordinary things with a different lens and finding beauty within it can create a new way of living. Every day is enhanced. Every day there is something new to look forward to. Every day is worth living for.

Finding beauty within the broken.

We live in a broken world with broken people, and it’d be ignorant for one to say that this world and people are perfect. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t find good or beauty within the brokenness. In fact, I would say that beauty exists more within the brokenness — now, my intention isn’t to glorify or romanticize brokenness in any way.

There is so much beauty that can be captured within people’s redemption stories, change of heart (little or big), revelation, and enlightenment. When that one girl in your life has a breakthrough to physically, spiritually, and mentally know what love feels like. Or that one dude who stopped feeling and processing emotions, because it was mentally and physically too tolling, reattempts in feeling and processing. And when a family all works together to repair damaged relationships through open communication and processing past events as one body. Unlearning the lies and unhealthy methods that were passed down to us from generation to generation and relearning how to be healthy, together.

Seeing the broken world through the lens of love and compassion, hence creating art and designs that reflect that same philosophy. Understanding what it means to be hurt and broken, hence creating art and designs that give hope to these broken people. Sharing your own brokenness and redemption story through the medium of art and design, hence accompanying one’s life story/journey.

In essence, my art and design philosophy is to find beauty within the mundane and broken, also to find meaning in life — to question “why?” to everything around me. Perhaps, my raging curiosity about the world and desire to know the answers to all things in life is what instills this philosophy in my designs — I’m not sure, yet. All I know is that I have come to conclude that these are the recurring motifs in my life, though it is still ongoing.

Thank you to everyone who supports me and has supported me till today. I welcome every person who took the time to read this to follow me on this journey that goes beyond art and design. And seriousness aside, if you’ve read through to the end, I respect you and I love you, HAHAHA. Thank you once again for taking interest in my life and being a part of my inspiration.

With love,

D.

Additional Resources:

Makoto Fujimara’s ‘Why Art? Why Write?’