Jihye Kim
1. Congratulations on winning the NY Product Design Awards! Can you introduce yourself and share about what inspired you to pursue design as a career?
I’m a product designer currently based in New York. Over the years, I’ve worked across both consumer-facing and enterprise-level products, and I’m currently designing agentic AI platforms that help users interact with large and complex datasets through conversational interfaces. I’ve always been fascinated by how people interact with systems and information in everyday life, and that curiosity naturally led me into the world of design.
2. What does being recognized in the NY Product Design Awards mean to you?
Being recognized by the NY Product Design Awards is meaningful to me because it brings together talented designers and creative work from around the world. Receiving this award gave me both confidence and motivation to continue pushing creative boundaries and designing experiences that can genuinely help people navigate complex systems more intuitively.
3. How has this achievement impacted your career, team, or agency, and what opportunities has it brought so far?
This achievement gave me more confidence in the direction of my work. It also opened up opportunities to share my ideas and connect with other creatives and professionals in the industry through conversations about my process and design thinking. More than anything, it motivated me to continue exploring complex problems and turning them into experiences that feel intuitive and meaningful for users.
4. What role does experimentation play in your creative process? Can you share an example?
Experimentation plays a big role in my creative process because strong ideas often come from deeply understanding real problems and testing different perspectives. In one project, I worked closely with users through co-creation sessions where we openly shared pain points and sketched out ideas together. That process helped uncover insights and solutions that wouldn’t have come from assumptions alone.
5. What's the most unusual source of inspiration you've ever drawn from for a project?
One of my biggest sources of inspiration is actually cities and urban systems. Having lived in places like Tokyo, Seoul, and New York, I became fascinated by how people navigate complex environments and how systems quietly shape behavior. Observing those experiences influenced the way I think about clarity, trust, and movement within digital products.
6. What’s one thing you wish more people understood about the design process?
I wish more people understood that design is not only about execution or visuals, but also about constant iteration and validation. A strong design outcome usually comes from continuously learning, testing, and refining ideas rather than arriving at a perfect solution immediately.
7. How do you navigate the balance between meeting client expectations and staying true to your ideas?
I believe the ultimate goal of design is creating a clear and delightful experience for users. To balance client expectations with my own ideas, I focus on aligning around the core problem and maintaining open communication throughout the process. Constant discussions and shared reasoning help us arrive at solutions that are both strategic and user-centered.
8. What were the challenges you faced while working on your award-winning design, and how did you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges was building a narrative that made the product easy to understand and emotionally engaging for the audience. To overcome this, I repeatedly returned to the original problem space and refined the story behind the design decisions. Continuously reviewing the flow and visual storytelling helped strengthen the overall experience.
9. How do you recharge your creativity when you hit a creative block?
When I hit a creative block, I try to step away from the screen and give myself space to reset mentally. Going for a walk, observing my surroundings, or sketching random thoughts in a notebook often helps me reconnect ideas naturally. Those small breaks usually refresh my perspective and help untangle my thinking.
10. What personal values or experiences do you infuse into your designs?
Empathy. I try to fully place myself in the user’s situation to understand what they may feel throughout the experience. That mindset shapes how I visualize, refine, and continuously iterate on ideas until the experience feels right.
11. What is an advice that you would you give to aspiring designers aiming for success?
My advice would be not to pressure yourself into having everything figured out immediately. Growth in design is often nonlinear, and both successes and failures become part of the learning process. Staying curious, patient, and consistent over time is much more important than trying to follow a perfect roadmap.
12. If you could collaborate with any designer, past or present, who would it be and why?
I would love to collaborate with Naoto Fukasawa because I admire the way he observes everyday human behavior and turns it into simple, intuitive experiences. His work feels quiet but deeply thoughtful, and that approach resonates with how I think about product design and systems in everyday life.
13. What's one question you wish people would ask you about your work, and what's your answer?
I wish more people would ask, “What’s your core value in product design?” My answer would be that great design should make complexity feel understandable and approachable while still creating an emotional connection with users. I believe the best experiences are the ones that help people without making them think about the interface itself.
