When we talk about the creations or design of K-POP, we probably can’t miss the significant name Min Heejin. I want to let you know about her works, my favorite ones, and some tendencies of K-POP’s creations compared to the Japanese musical market from a designer’s perspective.
* All of the quotes of her interview comment are translated from Korean to English by me, technically from Korean-Japanese translation to English.
Min Heejin
- born in 1979
- ex-creative director in SM Entertainment
- joined SM in 2002 and quit in 2019
- joined BigHit Entertainment as Chief Brand Officer on July 1st, 2019
SM Entertainment is known as one of the biggest musical companies in Korea. They have a lot of famous K-POP musicians like BoA, TVXQ, SUPER JUNIOR, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, f(x), EXO, Red Velvet, NCT. On the other hand, BigHit Entertainment has BTS. And the main purpose of her is to lead the debut of their new girl group.
The CEO of Big Hit Entertainment stated “Min Heejin is a leader of leaders who brought the concept of combining ‘Visual director’ and ‘planner’ to K-pop, I am very happy to have an expert who leads the industry join us as we focus on contents and fans. We believe the knowledge Min Hee Jin has about branding will help give wings to Big Hit and its related businesses as we undergo restructuring. I’m excited to see what kind of innovation this forward-thinking creator will bring to K-pop with her own label.”
Not only this CEO but both SM and Big Hit fandoms were excited and looking forward to the newbie debuted from the most thriving company. Or rather, some old fans expected Girls’ Generation Big Hit ver.
Remarkable Min Heejin’s works and my favorite
f(x) — 4Walls (2015)
There are several K-POP generations that divide groups according to their debut years. If I could define another generation for even K-POP’s design, 4Walls’ design is one of the epic pieces that had changed the creative trends. By that time of 4Walls, the typical K-POP visual direction was kind of gorgeous and dazzling as the first iOS skeuomorphism concept. Min Heejin was also following these trends but doing another approach like a collage method or intricate package inspired by a jewelry box in Girls’ Generation and SHINee era.
This album was released in 2015 that flat design and material design were popular. In addition, this was the first album since one of the members Sulli had left f(x). This member had the most feminine atmosphere for better or for worse, so I guess this leave enabled f(x) to show another aspect as sophisticated and mature women. For Min Heejin, f(x) and SHINee were special groups because they were the first experiences that she was able to do visual direction since pre-debut, and there were lots of trial and error she had. 4Walls and the member’s leave must be a paradigm shift for her.
EXO — Monster (2016)
EXO is one of the biggest success group and the strength of them with SM’s creative team is a skill of character making. Monster has a very dark concept that is the one why I got into K-POP idols culture. I guess the process fans were attracted by them seems like Japanese animation’s one, therefore the fandoms between K-POP and J-animation are often overlapped.
If you like fashion, design, or photography, it also means you have the potential to get into K-POP or at least its design. You can see lots of pieces such as hairstyle, makeup, and accessories that also represent K-POP’s creative stuff in this music video. If you can find something attractive from this, you might be obsessed with their recent work Obsession.
Red Velvet — Perfect Velvet (2018)
Red Velvet has been satisfying Min Heejin’s desire for creativity, while f(x) has been less active since they released 4Walls. They can adjust summer girlish concept and even 90’s American horror scenario.
As you can see top-left of the upper image, somehow it’s hard for me to approve as the main visual of idol’s album. This Min Heejin’s favorite trick collage seems less effective in terms of making use of idols’ facial appearance to the fullest extent. However, it turns out to be a good example of making a shivering atmosphere for this album. Aside from the main visual, other photos also show her ability which gives us an eye-opening interpretation gap from their cute styling to mysterious and creepy intentions like “The Addams Family”.
f(x) — Pink Tape Art Film (2013)
This is the first film which is a proposal from Min Heejin. As soon as she listened to a lead single, she popped up on her mind and proposed her boss the single should have an art film. Since it was not enough budget because of her own project, she ended up working with her younger brother and his friends in art college as film directors who had a mutual understanding.
The storyline is a melancholy omnibus style of stateless and mysterious students in order to depict the tale of f(x) affection. She reached out to something new and potentially worthwhile, and this film led her to be one of the famous K-POP creators. The beginning narration is spoken by her favorite f(x) member, Krystal.
“Love exists but with an absence of eternity. At the first moment of a lovers encounter, there’s an affirmation of love. Psychologically lunacy, emptiness, panic, delusion that the moment will last forever… I’m seized by the desire. I hide behind my back… And postpone all answers.”
W Korea (2015)
She selected her favorite SM’s members, Taemin from SHINee, Kai from EXO, and Krystal from f(x), for the Korean fashion magazine photography program. I’ve been writing just designing stuff so far, but essentially fans are excited about idols personalities and backgrounds as well as their appearances, unlike just models. So we can fully enjoy imagining every single relationship, even males case, from these three combinations. Some fans mentioned this as an homage inspired by “The Dreamers” whose main casts are also two males and one female.
FYI, they are close in age and friends since they’re trainees. Kai and Krystal finally became a couple and broke up. Taemin and Kai are now in the same new group SuperM that consists of popular members from each group.
SM’s works after Min Heejin quitting
EXO — Obsession (2019)
The styling seems like a villainous character making in an animation program. It’s only possible with EXO’s unique individuals of great presence.
Newbie idols sometimes try to be different from others by having a strange concept, even if it would be a self obstacle when they get older.
Originally EXO has also a unique specification that each member has a superpower, such as teleportation, wind, flame, light, water, lightning, etc. In this music video, these settings were used for each member’s scene making naturally, not maliciously.
Red Velvet — Psycho (2019)
Psycho is one of the most successful works of Red Velvet, in terms of not only music but an aesthetic atmosphere, sort of ritual styling, and nostalgic photo direction. While I feel grateful to the next director taking over what Min Heejin had been doing, I can’t help looking forward to another Psycho, like what if she could direct.
Background
She was absorbed in drawing and got influenced by her grandpa to get into art and design. Since she used to want to become an audio director, she joined the broadcasting club in her school. Finally, she decided to go to art college and majored in visual design, and so did Her younger brothers.
She had been worried about her future career after finishing the internship in the Korean advertising agency in her junior grade. One day, the teaser video of SM solo singer BoA had stunned her. She thought she could enjoy the idol music industry by making showing her artistic worldview to general public listeners and signed up SM recruit, even though she wasn’t into idol culture.
“This industry seemed to be totally different from my preference but closer to the public. So I wanted to create another inspiring graphic, not consumer-oriented. In addition to that, I was kind of excited about this ironic situation like sending my works and let listeners widen horizons through the Korean idols culture.”
Philosophy
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Though she had been involved in almost all procedures like music videos, styling on stage, and package design as a creative director until she quit SM, she didn’t have this kind of prominent creative team from the beginning of her career in 2002. She had just established a productive team making process one by one after her new trial had succeeded.
Thanks to her steady efforts, SM finally allowed her to do the comprehensive visual direction in 2009 when she was in charge of SUPER JUNIOR’s Sorry Sorry and Girls’ Generation’s Gee. She also did the visual direction of SHINee, f(x), EXO, Red Velvet, and NCT since pre-debut.
* NCT has been managed by another SM director from the middle. (This is going to be explained in detail in the next post.)
“Since we didn’t have creative directors who could manage totally, we had to work individually. So even if music production was nice, they weren’t able to make use of it fully without an appropriate styling direction. It’s really important to bind all pieces of creation and various human resources with organic chemistries.”
“As for me, the profound design should be not only the process of making beautiful packages. If anything, it should consist of musicians’ intentions or interpretations of their music. So it’s natural demands to work widely and innovatively for me. Of course, it’s hard at the beginning, but we definitely do well and easily next. We can’t get anything without trial and error.”
Artist logo
“While we sometimes make a certain logo representing a group’s identity, it’s not always the best means because it might be even restriction for a group in particular changing concept every single work. They sometimes show the strength of wearing uniforms, and sometimes they show the girlish innocence. It’s difficult to match all of the appearances with only one type of logo. On the other hand, we adopt the ‘EXO’ hexagon logo framing and change only how it’s depicted according to albums’ concept.”
Art director
“Art directors essentially have to have good communication skills and marketing knowledge that manage the whole procedure comprehensively as well as design skills. If you have some sort of fantasy to be an art director, it’s not that way at all. I could have hanged out with my friends without working hard, but I guess only the people who have royalty for their work and endure their loneliness can be genuine prominent art directors.”
Brief
The Next Story
still writing
- comparison to J-POP creation
- K-POP as one of the national strategies
