Dr Youngok Choi

Dr Youngok Choi is a Lecturer, School of Engineering &Design, Brunel University. She joined Brunel in 2009. She is a design strategist specialising in design management and design policy. She has been involved in several design research projects mainly concerned with national design policy with particular reference to the national business support programmes in design, the future of the UK Design Industry, and design strategy for businesses. She is especially interested in the relationship between national design policy, industrial success and economic growth, contiuning to build on her PhD research which looked at national design policy in the UK and South Korea. She has also focuses on the co-creation and innovation in the new product development process. She has collaborated with Samsung Electronics, Samsung Design Europe and LG Design Europe.

Brief biography

Youngok completed her PhD in Design Management from Lancaster University in 2009 under the supervision of Professor Rachel Cooper and in 2005 she graduated MA course in Design Strategy and Innovation at Brunel University. She earlier qualified in both Business Administration and Communication Design at tertiary institutions. She worked for The Bank of Korea before studying design.

Research Interests

Youngoks’ research interests cover design management, design policy and strategy, new product devleopment, and design for public sectors.

Current Research

Strategic model and future concepts for convergence and cross mobile IT - an industrial research funded by Samsung Electronics. The project has four phases and the aims of those are to (i) explore the innovation territory and identify potential target markets, (ii) develop in-depth understanding of target audiences and identify key benefits of current convergence of products, (iii) develop design and platform strategies for the convergence and cross mobile computing IT products, and (iv) develop design concepts for the IT products.

• Sponsors: Samsung Electronics
• Value: £18k
• Dates: 2011

Previous Research

New design concepts for the future – a collaborative design research project between Brunel University and LG Design Europe. The project created innovative concepts with emphasis placed on the user experience to build a scenario, usage scene, functions, and unique design forms to express features.

• Sponsors: LG Design Europe
• Value: 1k
• Dates: 2011

Digital Home Appliance Innovation Research and Design Strategy Development – an industrial research funded by Samsung Design Europe. The project consisted of numerous user and trend research in order to identify opportunities for design and business. The outcomes included future scenarios, strategic design directions, new design concepts and potential new business models.

• Sponsors: Samsung Design Europe
• Value: 20k
• Dates: 2010

Teaching

Youngok is the module leader for Design Research on the MA Design Strategy & Innovation and Design & Branding Strategy, and delivers lectures on Creative Enterprise, Strategic Design Management and Branding to the MAs. She also lectures on Innovation Management at Level 3 for BSc Product Design and BA Industrial Design & Technology students. She has also supervised and managed several research projects in Design Management and Branding.

Publications

Journal Papers

(Forthcoming) Bentley, L. and Choi, Y., Cross-cultural internal branding experiences and Multinational Corporations (MNCs), Journal of Product and Branding Management Forthcoming

(Forthcoming) Jang, J., Choi, Y. and Lam, B., Empowered: strengthening design’s role in business-to business (B2B) brand, Journal of Product and Branding Management

(2012) Choi, Y., Lim, S. and Evans, M., Supporting design: National business support programmes in the UK and South Korea, The Design Journal 15 (1) : 79- 104

(2011) Choi, Y., Cooper, R., Lim, S. and Evans, M., The relationship between national policy support programmes in the UK and South Korea 1940s – 2000s, Design Issues 27 (1) : 70- 82

(2010) Choi, Y., Cooper, R., Lim, S. and Evans, M., National support for design, developing propositional models, Design Management Review 21 (4) : 60- 69

Conference Papers

(2011) Hamid, J. and Choi, Y., Co-creation between organisations and consumers, Participatory Innovation Conference (PINC 2011)

(2010) Kim, J. and Choi, Y., A design-led strategic model for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in middle schools in South Korea, DesignEd Asia Conference 2010

(2009) Choi, Y., Cooper, R., Lim, S. and Evans, M., Driving innovation through national business support programmes in design: a study of the UK and South Korea design policy, EURopean Academy of Management (EURAM 2009)

(2007) Choi, Y., Cooper, R., Lim, S. and Evans, M., Dancing with design – a study of the national design policy and design support programmes in South Korea, EAD (European Academy of Design)’07

(2006) Choi, Y., Cooper, R., Hands, D. and Lim, S., The influence of design on global competitiveness, EURAM (EURopean Academy of Management) 6th Annual Conference

(2006) Choi, Y., Hands, D., Cooper, R. and Boult, J., An investigation into current models of inter-disciplinary communication, with special attention focusing on the design and management functions, 1st International Design Management Symposium - D2B Shanghai 2006

(2005) Choi, Y., Holland, R. and Boult, J., An investigation into current thinking and models of inter-disciplinary communication between designers and general managers, International Workshop on Exploring Complexity in Collaborative Design and Solutions