WindowTalk 5

Summer (Hyolim) Lee


In Between Emptiness and Fullness

Summer invites spectators to imagine the life and emotion of every outline that she drew.”


To her, type design is more than a letterform, craft, or functional tool. When making typefaces, her primary focus is telling stories and exploring the lives and emotions of these typefaces. The installation of the type specimen series <In between Emptiness and Fullness> is a journey in which we can explore how emotional typefaces are specified and how they are formed as characters. Through building a fictional, biographical story: ‘Ttubogi: Mind Walker,’ Summer identifies a typeface as an emotional personality with a complex narrative. 

Summer analyzes how lines take shape to create typefaces and investigate how emotions are both visual and linguistic. Her resulting aesthetic is a physical combination of ‘comic background effects’ and movement. The line drawings are based on emotions which she could not describe in words – and visualized them within a letterform.

The drawings on the window and text written on the fabric show every movement in between Emptiness and Fullness where Ttubogi has traveled through. The collection of type specimens show a range of narrative paths through different materials, which bring to life the main character ‘Ttubogi’ from her comic book and place them into the physical space.

[editors’ note: we invite you to listen to Summer’s Spotify Mix while reading the text]