Director Eitaro Satake Architect at teamSTAR Director Eitaro Satake, architect at teamSTAR and winner of ADP’s Design of the Year, pursues structures that echo nature and forms that endure. His award winning Villa A breathes with its site through a vaulted roof of continuous CLT arches that recall white waves, emerald flooring that suggests a shallow sea, and a shell like floating...

In August 2025, the operator of London Bagel Museum (LBM) was acquired for a price in the low to mid 200-billion-won range. For a domestic food and beverage franchise, this valuation stands out in the history of Korean M&A. Private equity firm JKL Partners is reportedly pursuing the global expansion of K-food through the deal. Debate has followed over whether the price was high or low. Korean ...

Many agencies describe themselves in strikingly similar ways. Everyone says they break boundaries, collaborate as one team with the client, and understand the brand more deeply than anyone else. Add claims of rigorous strategy, unexpected creativity, hybrid practice, boundary breaking, soup to nuts delivery, and even declarations that they now operate beyond advertising. None of this differentiate...

When teams prepare for branding, many wonder where to begin and how to proceed. You can consider many things, but the first priority is to define your brand’s core experience. In an earlier column I described branding as the work of creating a value that separates you from others. That distinctive value can be restated as the core experience. So what exactly is the core experience? In plain ter...

Director Eitaro Satake Architect at teamSTAR Director Eitaro Satake, architect at teamSTAR and winner of ADP’s Design of the Year, pursues structures that echo nature and forms that endure. His award winning Villa A breathes with its site through a vaulted roof of continuous CLT arches that recall white waves, emerald flooring that suggests a shallow sea, and a shell like floating...

Vice President Oliver Lin Taiwan Design Research Institute (TDRI) Jury of K-Design Award Oliver Lin, Vice President of the Taiwan Design Research Institute (TDRI), is a designer and policymaker known for bridging technology, culture, and society through cross disciplinary design. Building on strengths in Taiwan’s industrial and product design, he has expanded into service design,...

Hyunho Choi Editor in Chief, CA BOOKS Has print reached its limits—or has it grown deeper? We sat down with Hyunho Choi, Editor in Chief of CA BOOKS, to ask about the value and philosophy of a paper magazine that aims to be “kept,” not just “read.” Choi frames CA not as a mere information outlet but as a Creative Archive that records and proposes good desig...

Dan Matutina Founder of Plus63 Dan Matutina is a Filipino graphic designer and illustrator, co-founder of Plus63 and partner at Hydra Design Group. Known for fusing angular geometry with hand-wrought textures, he has collaborated with Apple, Google, and WIRED, and was named to The One Club’s Young Guns 11. In this ADP interview, we spotlight how his practice distills experimentati...

In August 2025, the operator of London Bagel Museum (LBM) was acquired for a price in the low to mid 200-billion-won range. For a domestic food and beverage franchise, this valuation stands out in the history of Korean M&A. Private equity firm JKL Partners is reportedly pursuing the global expansion of K-food through the deal. Debate has followed over whether the price was high or low. Korean ...

Many agencies describe themselves in strikingly similar ways. Everyone says they break boundaries, collaborate as one team with the client, and understand the brand more deeply than anyone else. Add claims of rigorous strategy, unexpected creativity, hybrid practice, boundary breaking, soup to nuts delivery, and even declarations that they now operate beyond advertising. None of this differentiate...

When teams prepare for branding, many wonder where to begin and how to proceed. You can consider many things, but the first priority is to define your brand’s core experience. In an earlier column I described branding as the work of creating a value that separates you from others. That distinctive value can be restated as the core experience. So what exactly is the core experience? In plain ter...

Branding is not about polishing the surface. Many people look at sleek visuals or finely crafted mockups and think, “This is the team I need,” but beauty is inherently subjective. Some equate flamboyance with excellence; others find trust in restraint. In Chinese, the word for “design” is composed of two characters that mean “to conceive” and “to plan.” This reminds us that design ...