The no frills, ethos-based design of Heart Studio
Meet Hannah Kim, co-founder of Heart Studio, who is raising meaningful questions through thoughtful design.
Seamus Blackwell: Much of the content seems to revolve around interpersonal relationships—the good and the bad—and the conversations that we have with one another. Seems as appropriate as ever, given the strain that lock-down has brought to many of us and our relationships. Was this past year the catalyst for Heart Studio? Or was this a subject you always wanted to tackle?
Hannah Kim: It's definitely something I've always wanted to do. The ethos has always been my personal mission statement—meaning that in whatever I do, there's a part where the viewer or participant can have a deeper connection to it versus it just being an aesthetically cool piece. That's why I started this with the co-founder Jessica. We both align in the mission for human connection. We both really love and are fascinated by people and so we wanted to start this studio where we can speak to people in a deeper way. COVID definitely catalyzed the process—I don't think it was the reason why we started it though. But it put the values that we have more at the surface and motivated us to start designing together.
Hannah Kim Design / Heart Studio
It's difficult to capture the complexity of interpersonal relationships in a simple, effective design language. How do you go about designing around something so complex?
First, we wanted to establish what or who we want to speak to—so we created a piece What We're About that helped us solidify our ethos. For us and our audience. We want to forego all the frivolous stuff that can go along with a design company and the work they produce; we want to make sure our message is cutting through. [Jessica and I] are always asking ourselves how a piece of work is relating to us: do we feel that emotional connection, does it inspire us in a deeper way? Does it have something to say about anxiety, or friendship, or missing a person, or maybe words that your mom spoke to you growing up? That kind of stuff speaks to our hearts and we figured it would speak to others too. And that's where the name for the studio came from; in all that we do, we want to speak to the heart somehow. I think it's a really complex goal. It's not easy to speak to everyone's heart, it's not easy to spur emotional connection with everyone via Instagram for example. I think it's something we don't see enough though. Graphic design can be very superficial at times, or just about the visual. And we love that aspect, we love aesthetic design. But we're more interested in whether or not the work is communicating to someone or perhaps changing their mind about something that they otherwise wouldn't have thought about.
I appreciate the fact that you're not just focused on the "good" parts of relationships. You also address the more uncomfortable or more straining aspects of a relationship, platonic or otherwise. I think there's a tendency to avoid those uncomfortable dynamics in a relationship as opposed to being honest about them and addressing them. The candor and openness that the work has with the grittier aspects of relationships is really refreshing and engaging.
That’s great to hear. Initially, we weren’t sure how people were registering everything. Jessica and I are always having those conversations with each other and that’s sort of what Heart was borne out of—just us having those conversations. And we’re more about creating a space for those conversations as opposed to just making a brand and selling it.
You also broach the topic of the relationship one has with one's self. I’m thinking of the piece Some Questions in particular where you beckon your audience to analyze their own emotional state, to be more mindful. It might be obvious to some people why it’s beneficial to be self-aware, but what does Heart aim to achieve by getting your audience, or your community rather, to ask themselves these questions?
Yeah, the hope is that by checking in with yourself and being more self-aware, the better you are at opening up about your situation or your emotions. You can better communicate or relate to others. We recognize the need to check in with yourself and ask, “how’s my heart doing?”, but it’s difficult to remember to do it. So we created this piece to serve as a reminder.
I like the question, “do trust and comfort go hand and hand?”
Ha, yeah. When Jessica and I sit down to work we just ask how the other is doing, what’s been on their mind or heart. For this piece, we started raising questions with one another about our happiness or comfort and why we feel that way. Are they hand in hand? Or does happiness require some struggle? Does trust have to be there for me to be comfortable? The trajectory is more or less this process of asking a bunch of questions and getting to the nitty-gritty of it all to find an underlying theme.
So it’s just you and Jessica that started the studio. It’s cool that you have an in-house friendship that you can bounce these ideas off of to inspire your design.
Yeah, we met while studying Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design. We have very different perspectives on the world and have lived very different lives, but we have a connection and trust and can relate to each other emotionally. And that’s kind of a testament to the fact that people can have very different perspectives or even different values and still connect. I believe that finding unity within different perspectives can make the world a better place and if Heart Studio brings a fraction of that to light, that’s a win for me. The topics that we talk about are for the most part pretty universal. There’s a lot of things that connect us together, which is good to focus on especially during more divisive times.
