K, Hyun Guen KimGraphic Designer 

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The Urban Squeeze
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Experience

The Urban Squeeze

Editorial
11”x14” p.128


2024


I have lived in cities all my life. I was born in Seoul, my grandparents live in Hong Kong, and my sibling works in New York. Also, I am currently studying graphic design in L.A. I had the opportunity to spend time and observe cities from a very young age.

Being accustomed to urban environments, I designed a book from my perspective of living in cities. I captured the congestion found in each city. The tall apartment buildings and narrow streets of New York, the packed homes in Hong Kong, the pushmen in Tokyo’s Subways, and the traffic jams in L.A. When these hectic moments are looked upon from a bird’s eye view, it tend to break down to simple squares and geometric shapes. The simplified shapes create unique rhythm in both regular and irregular patterns.

Within it’s simplified visual, I enjoy searching for the trace of humanity, somewhat problematic but aesthetically pleasing elements.







Prologue

This project begins at a construction site — the birthplace of cities and stories. Inspired by the imagery of urban development, I created my own construction site using typography as the building material. The project unfolds in two phases, representing New York and Hong Kong. Through typographic expression, I aimed to capture the distinct rhythm and atmosphere of each city.

I chose images of buildings under construction to reflect the narrative perspective — as if I am building this book myself. I wanted readers to feel the sense of constructing the story as they move through the pages.






Chapter

Each chapter divider represents a different city — New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Los Angeles — distinguished by a color inspired by the city’s unique visual language.

New York draws from the cool tones of building windows, while Hong Kong is marked by the vibrant red of its countless taxis. Tokyo takes inspiration from the subway system’s clean, muted palette, and Los Angeles is defined by the bold yellow seen in road signs and traffic signals.





New York

As a foreigner, I was struck by the sheer number of area codes in New York something I had never encountered before. To emphasize this, I began the sequence with these codes, using them as a typographic entry point. I also listed numerous apartment names, capturing the density and diversity of the city’s living spaces.





Hong Kong

Every time I visit Hong Kong, I’m greeted by its iconic red taxis — a constant presence in the city’s rhythm. Looking up at the tightly packed apartment buildings, it often feels like there’s barely room to breathe.

To express this sense of overwhelming density, I transformed these visuals into graphic elements — interpreting what I saw into a personal, typographic language.





Tokyo

In Tokyo, station staff — known as “push men” — physically help pack passengers into crowded subway cars. And yet, even at the world’s busiest crossing, Shibuya Crossing, there’s always just enough space to walk.

This contrast between extreme density and precise order felt strangely charming to me, and I aimed to reflect that tension in my typographic expression.





Los Angeles

Driving on LA’s freeways is unlike any other city I’ve experienced. Despite being wider than most roads in East Asian countries, traffic is almost always heavy. Accidents are frequent, and the roads feel chaotic — especially on weekends and holidays when everyone seems to be on the freeway.

And yet, I find a strange beauty in this chaos, which I tried to capture through my design approach.





Outro

For the outro, I revisited the visual system I used earlier in the project. I placed the cities toward the center of the layout to create a compact, unified feeling. By aligning them along the middle fold of the book, I wanted to emphasize their connection — as if the cities are converging at the core of the book.







Motion poster






T shirt







Spatial







Spatial




Spatial