Defining Is Also a Designer’s Job

AI summary focused on the core points of the original article.

This report summarizes the content of the 'Insight Out 4th' seminar hosted by Share X and Monthly <Design>. It captures the changes in the role of in-house designers and the way they work as told by five in-house design leaders from major domestic conglomerates and IT companies.

In-house Design Organizations and Strategies by Company

Naver (Sim Jun-yong, VP in charge of brand)

Definition of design: Design is not a momentary finished product, but the entire process of measuring and refining performance, and a problem-solving process.
Core capability: The ability to prove the impact (numbers) that one’s design has had on the business, rather than formal perfection.
Key case: Redefined Naver Map from a 'route-finding tool' to the 'starting point of every journey' and won the 2025 KDA Brand category Winner award.

Hyundai Department Store (Kim Do-yoon, Head of Design LAB)

Definition of design: A shift from management to a strategic organization. A role of 'medicine' that solves fundamental problems, not a 'painkiller' that simply handles requests.
Core capability: A business perspective that looks at effectiveness rather than perfection, logical persuasiveness, and assiduity that pushes forward while enduring rejection.
Key case: Successfully differentiated the spatial experience by introducing a non-sales art exhibition instead of a store in the highest-priced space on the first floor of The Hyundai Seoul.

LG Household & Health Care (Lee Byeong-ju, Head of Design Center)

Definition of design: CVC (Customer Value Creator), overseeing the work of creating customer value.
Core capability: Going beyond the 'current' approach of receiving marketing analysis and executing it, and leading 'ahead-of-time' projects in which designers ask questions and analyze the market first.
Key case: Reinterpreted the palace-art aesthetics of 'The Whoo,' a brand with 20 years of heritage, and won IDEA and iF Design Awards.

Hanssem (Choi Ji-yeon, Head of R&D Division)

Definition of design: A role that goes beyond formal perfection and encompasses product planning, pricing, and portfolio operations.
Core capability: Business sensing that pinpoints business outcomes throughout the entire design process.
Key case: Planned customized products and a Bath business tailored to each stage of brand growth (quantitative growth, identity building, category expansion).

Toss (Jung Hye-yeon, CDO)

Definition of design: In an era where technological progress is erasing boundaries, the essence of a designer is the sensitivity and judgment to know what is good.
Core capability: An attitude of defining one’s work through Job Crafting and making vocation the purpose.
Organizational restructuring: Consolidated six separate design roles into two: 'product designers' who solve problems and 'visual designers' who create a more beautiful world.

Key Takeaways

In-house designers must not remain mere practitioners of form, but rather evolve into proactive problem-solvers who redefine problems themselves from a business perspective and prove results.

XPLORED View

This is a report that makes it easy to see at a glance how far in-house designers are expanding the boundaries of their work.

Good situations to read it

It fits well when organizational restructuring, job definition, or design leadership conversations are needed.
It is especially helpful when you want to read design in connection with business rather than as a deliverable.

Points to take away

Comparing how each company defines design makes our team’s role statement clearer as well.
It is a good reference for distinguishing whether an organization receives requests or redefines problems.

Read original

This article is summarized and interpreted by XPLORED based on publicly available original sources and related materials. Rights to the original source and materials included in it belong to their respective rights holders. If a rights holder requests a correction or removal, we will review and respond promptly.

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