“The Journey Toward Model-Based Color Design: Harmony, Search Engines, and Illusions” | Visiting Scholar Lecture with Sangwon Lee

The Lamar Dodd School of Art welcomes Sangwon Lee, Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Integrated Design at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, for a visiting scholar lecture. Graphic Design Associate Professor Grace Jun invited Lee to deliver this special talk.

“The Journey Toward Model-Based Color Design: Harmony, Search Engines, and Illusions”

From the perspective of design degrees of freedom, color constitutes a relatively simple, one-dimensional design space. Nevertheless, when considered in relation to color harmony, affective associations, and aesthetics, it becomes subtle and complex, demanding both the experiential knowledge and cognitive labor of the designer. Drawing upon two recently published studies, I first examine the quantification of color harmony through AI models and evaluate the outcomes when such quantifications are applied to generative models. Next, I investigate methods for extracting feature colors from the images collected from search engines in order to generate palettes corresponding to arbitrary keywords. Finally, I review the typologies and representative cases of visual illusions identified in existing research, while presenting my own findings on the role of color within these phenomena. Collectively, this analysis aims to elucidate how design processes—traditionally grounded in human emotion and tacit knowledge—may evolve under the influence of computational and model-based methodologies.

Speaker Bio

Professor Sangwon Lee is a Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Integrated Design at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He is a mid-career scholar in design research and currently serves in multiple leadership roles, including Member of the Executive Board of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), Managing Director of Archives of Design Research, Director of the Yonsei Design Center, and Head of the Department of Integrated Design.

His research lies at the intersection of design and technology, with a particular focus on the quantification of design rules, AI-driven reframing of traditional design problems, and the exploration of emerging design media. His work aims to bridge computational methods and design thinking to expand how design knowledge is generated, evaluated, and applied. His research has been published in leading international journals and conferences, including ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM CHI, ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interaction, Digital Creativity, International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, International Journal of Technology and Design Education, Color Research and Application, and Design Studies.

He has also actively collaborated with industrial partners such as IKEA (Sweden), LG Electronics and LG Display, SK Telecom, and Hyundai Motor Company. He is currently the Principal Investigator of a large-scale research project focused on building a platform for evaluating user experience in XR media content, supported by a USD 3 million grant over three years. The project involves partnerships between three companies and six research laboratories across five universities.

Professor Lee received his B.S. in Architecture from Seoul National University, M.S. in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Intel Corporation.