Tactile Wobbly And Familiar Sohee Chaes Designs Are Both Experimental And Methodical

Creative Boom: Inspiration Graphic Design Tactile, wobbly and familiar: Sohee Chae's designs are both experimental and methodical The Seoul and London-based graphic designer and founder of Layer/Ply moves between publications, brand identities and shibori-dyed typography, building a practice rooted in process. Written By: Ayla Angelos 14 May 2026 Letting Go in the Cycle When Sohee Chae first arrived in London to study for her MA in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art, she made a rule for herself: always ask one question after a lecture, and reach out to at least one designer she wanted to talk to.

"It was really about practising bravery in small ways," she says. "Through these efforts, I met people who welcomed me warmly, and I also encountered unexpected opportunities – being invited to studios I admired, receiving collaboration proposals or getting meaningful advice." Sohee grew up and studied in Korea, completing a degree in Visual Design with a focus on service and brand design before taking a gap year to work as a brand designer in Seoul. The training was rigorous and structured.

"I was largely trained to anticipate defined outcomes and design processes accordingly, with a strong emphasis on entering and adapting to industry quickly." Over time, she noticed something. "My perspective was increasingly shaped by rules and expectations rather than intuition." That realisation eventually brought her to London and the RCA, where she began to reconsider the outcomes of her work and her entire attitude towards making.

"Now, I see design more as a matter of process and mindset than purely of results." Letting Go in the Cycle Letting Go in the Cycle Letting Go in the Cycle Letting Go in the Cycle This change is explicit in everything she has made since. Her RCA graduation project, Letting Go in the Cycle, is an experimental publication and tool that explores what she calls the small "gaps" within systems – the overlooked spaces that "reactivate visual and tactile perception". The work is methodical and radical, with precise grids interrupted by hand-crafted elements, and structured layouts that invite the reader to slow down and feel the page.

The Shape of Change pushes this further by incorporating a typographic experiment using shibori dyeing – a Japanese resist-dyeing technique – to visualise chance within controlled systems. The dye bleeds and pools within structures that Sohee has set up, the outcome never fully predictable. "Graphic design today increasingly leaves room for interpretation and personal engagement," she says, "which I see as an important shift." Her branding work operates with the same sensibility, as is the case for Second Skin – a fashion brand identity that reframes scars and marks as symbols of individuality.

Sohee worked with experimental materials and typography to find a visual language that represented that idea, and the result is bubbly, tactile, wobbly and familiar. Blendin Open Studio Prototype Poster The Bubble Paper Since graduating, Sohee has been building on two tracks simultaneously. As a brand and graphic designer at Seoul-based branding studio Project Room, she focuses on identity work rooted in the intimate narratives of small brands.

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Sohee Chae's experimental approach to graphic design presents a fresh perspective that can significantly influence brand strategy, making it relevant and novel for industry professionals.