Best Design Agencies in Seoul (2026)

Introduction

Seoul has a deep bench of independent design studios, and the 11 below cover graphic design, publishing, signage, packaging and product work. They were chosen for recent projects, 2025 and 2026 recognition, and the range of their clients.

The city’s studios work across two markets that often overlap. Cultural commissions come from institutions such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) and the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), while commercial work comes from groups such as Amorepacific, Lotte, Hanwha and CJ. The scene has also drawn outside attention: Victionary published the survey book Poseuteo Poster: Contemporary Korean Poster Design in March 2026, with studio fnt’s Jaemin Lee as lead participant, and Slanted has devoted issue 48 of its magazine to Seoul. In 2025, Everyday Practice planned Zeitgeist, an exhibition in Samseong-dong that brought designers together to call for democracy.

Every studio here was checked for an active presence in Seoul in 2026. The list is unranked, since the right choice depends on the brief, the budget and how you like to work. Studios focused mainly on brand strategy are on our branding agencies page.

The best design agencies in Seoul

1. Everyday Practice

Independent · Mapo-gu · everyday-practice.com

Everyday Practice (일상의실천) is a graphic design studio run by Joonho Kwon, Kyungchul Kim and Eojin Kim, who describe it as a small collective examining what design can do in present conditions. It won the grand prize in the communication category at the 2019 Korea Design Awards and was art director of the 2021 Seoul Design Festival. It also planned the 2025 Zeitgeist exhibition.

Its 2026 work includes the identity and graphic system for SeMA’s Yoo Young-kuk exhibition, a brochure kit for CJ Olive Young, motion graphics for the LANEIGE Seoul flagship store, and the 2026 Korea Art Festival for Arts Council Korea. It also designed a catalogue and poster series for the Nam June Paik Art Center.

2. studio fnt

Independent · Yongsan-gu · studiofnt.com

Jaemin Lee founded studio fnt in November 2006, and he now leads it with Heesun Kim as co-CEO. The studio moves between corporate branding and graphic design for exhibitions and cultural events. Its poster work has been selected for the Chaumont international poster competition, most recently in 2025, and Lee’s posters are held by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

A major recent project is the identity for Seoul’s 63 Building, which reopened in June 2026 as a cultural complex, with a mark, colour palette, wayfinding and merchandise for Hanwha Life. It also built a pattern system for Seoul Museum of History merchandise in 2026 and worked on the Lotteria rebrand. Other clients include Samsung Electronics, Apple, Hyundai Card and Amorepacific.

3. Workroom

Independent · Jongno-gu · workroompress.kr

Workroom is a graphic design studio and publishing house founded in Seoul in December 2006 by a photographer, an editor and two graphic designers. Its books, published as Workroom Press, cover art, design, literature, humanities, music and fashion. Since 2013 it has run the imprint Workroom Specter with Sulki and Min.

Client work is mainly for arts and culture organisations. The studio’s Hyunsun You started Kaufman, a second brand that turns lines from books, films and songs into objects, and Slanted featured it in its Seoul coverage in April 2026. Workroom also ran the visual design for the 2022 exhibition The Most Beautiful Book in Korea. It suits clients who want publishing knowledge alongside design.

4. Sulki and Min

Independent · Seoul · sulki-min.com

Sulki and Min is the practice of Choi Sulki and Choi Sung Min, who returned to Korea in 2005 to start it. They produce graphic identities, publications, promotional material and websites, and they also exhibit in both design and art settings. They were shortlisted for the Hermès Foundation Missulsang in 2014. In 2025 they released their first typeface, Prototype, and Workroom Press published the first monograph on their work.

Clients include MMCA, SeMA, the Leeum Museum of Art, the Asia Culture Center, the architecture office Mass Studies and the publisher Munhakdongne. International commissions have come from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and M+ in Hong Kong. Most of the listed work is for institutions, publishers and artists.

5. MYKC

Independent · Jongno-gu · mykc.kr

MYKC is a graphic design studio founded in 2009 by Kim Ki-mun and Kim Yong-chan. It works in editorial design, branding, packaging, signage and spatial graphics, and treats cultural and commercial projects as one body of work. It also publishes through its CMYK Books imprint. Recognition includes a 2023 Red Dot for Copenhagen Recipe packaging and a 2020 iF award for Amorepacific’s BLANK.

In October 2026 Design+ covered its work on Osulloc’s Jeju tea field, which included outdoor signage, wayfinding, the Tea Library identity with a custom serif typeface, and packaging for a Tea Library-only hojicha. Other clients include Amorepacific, Fritz Hansen, Kia, Pro-Specs and Royal & Co. This is a good place to start if signage and print need to come from one team.

6. paika

Independent · Seoul · paika.org

paika is the studio of Lee Suhyang and Ha Jihoon, and it marked its tenth anniversary in 2025. It covers books, identity, exhibition design, typography, motion and web. Two 2025 exhibitions looked back over the decade, including paika: Landscapes on Paper at the Gusan-dong Library Village, which showed more than 200 printed works.

Its 2026 work includes the identity for MODAFE 2026, the 45th edition of the international modern dance festival, which translates movement into a graphic language. The studio has a long relationship with the publisher Hysterian, and art books and exhibition catalogues make up much of its output. Performing arts and festival clients will find relevant work here.

7. Studio OKGO

Independent · Gangnam-gu · okgocorp.com

Studio OKGO is a design studio led by CEO Kim Dae-o, with a network that reaches Paris, New Zealand and India. Its services run across brand identity, packaging and product design, character and IP development, spatial design and pop-ups. It took Red Dot and iF awards in 2025, along with a K-Design Award Gold and a Good Design Award. It also runs its own brands, including KIGO Ice Cream and NEUF magazine.

In 2026 it created Chikichiki, a character for the restaurant brand Korean Street, and applied it to packaging, signage, merchandise and digital content. Other clients include Viva Republica, HD Hyundai, YG Entertainment, LG Electronics and KREAM. It suits consumer brands that want characters or pop-ups as part of the identity.

8. Thomas Studio

Independent · Gangnam-gu · thomas-studio.kr

Thomas Studio is a packaging design specialist founded in 2015 and led by CEO Kim Min-jung. It works in food and drink, beauty, healthcare and entertainment, and has had two major redesigns covered by Design+ in 2026.

The first was the Lotte Wellfood Kkokkalcorn snack, built around the product’s cone shape. The second was Lotte Chilsung’s Hot6 energy drink, where the studio replaced the phoenix symbol with a bold wordmark and a colour it calls Flame Blue, and collected real metal cans as colour references for the printer. Other clients include Samyang Foods, Binggrae, Hite Jinro, CJ CheilJedang and LG Household & Health Care.

9. SWNA

Independent · Bukchon · theswna.com

SWNA is a design office led by Lee Seok-woo, working on products, furniture, spaces, visuals and branding. It is rooted in industrial design and also runs Liberal Office, a label for experimental work. Its best-known public projects are the medals for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and a League of Legends World Championship trophy. It won Red Dot and iF awards in 2024.

Clients include Google (Nest advanced design), Samsung Electronics, Fritz Hansen, LG Electronics and Shinsegae’s JAJU. In 2026 it worked with Prospecs on Haze 26, which layers three-dimensional stripes over a single-tone logo to suggest thin fog. This is the studio on the list best suited to briefs involving physical products.

10. Studio Gomin

Independent · Seongsu-dong · studiogomin.com

Studio Gomin was registered in 2013 by the designers Ahn Seo-young and Lee Young-ha. It focuses on graphic design built around music, film and photography, along with magazines and books. Its art direction for the climate magazine 1.5℃ won an iF Design Award.

Music is the clearest strand of the portfolio: it has made album and photobook designs for TXT, Taeyeon and Kyuhyun, working with companies including SM Entertainment and HYBE. In 2026 it designed the identity for READ N DO, an imprint from the publisher Gilbut, with the letter N linking the two words. It has also made eco-paper kits and calendars for Hansol Paper.

11. Rojotype

Independent · Seoul · rojotype.com

Rojotype (로호타입) was started by Kim Ki-chang and Hong Seul-ki around 2020, and Kim Yeon-woo joined in September 2025, making it a team of three. Its practice joins type design, posters and curating. Its Latin typefaces Snello and Viso also explore how type can work with Hangul.

It has hosted the Korean edition of the European poster show 100 Beste Plakate with Doosung Paper since 2018, and the latest ran in Seocho-gu from October to November 2026. It also co-curated Graphic Universe 2025 for Seoul Design Festival and designed the labelling, leaflets and signage for the SeMA Reference Library. Institutions with a detailed typographic brief should look here.

What to look for in a Seoul design agency

Start with the studio’s mix of cultural and commercial work. Many Seoul studios do both, but the balance affects how they run a project. A museum catalogue often has one curator and a fixed opening date, while a consumer packaging job can involve brand managers, research and printers across several rounds. Ask to see a project close to yours in scale.

Check how the studio handles Korean and Latin type together. Any brand working in both markets needs Hangul and English that sit well side by side, and some studios on this list draw typefaces themselves. A custom typeface adds time and licensing questions, so raise it early.

Team size matters. Several studios here have only a handful of people, with the founders doing much of the design, so availability around major festivals and exhibitions can be tight. It is reasonable to ask who will lead your project, and whether a signage, spatial or motion phase will be done in-house or with a partner.

Finally, look at how the studio manages production files and sign-off. Identity systems, print-ready artwork and signage drawings go through many versions, often with several people commenting on the client side. A studio with a clear review process, and one place to find the latest files, will make those rounds easier to follow.

How Fabric helps design agency teams

Fabric gives a design studio one workspace for its files, client feedback and project knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The setup for graphic design agencies can hold one space per client, with briefs, references, artwork and call notes kept together.

Large artwork and motion files sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space. Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed recordings, and colour search finds visual assets by shade. Similar search surfaces images with a similar composition, colour or subject, which helps when looking for past work or references.

Client feedback runs through shared links. A studio can share a file or folder with commenter access, and clients can respond without signing up. They can highlight and comment on PDFs, draw on an image and attach a comment to the drawing, leave timestamped comments on video and audio, or draw on a video frame. The annotations can then be marked completed, so a round of feedback works like a checklist. There is a short guide on getting client feedback on a design.

For finished work, any file or folder can be published as a web page, which suits brand guidelines and project archives. Published links are view-only, with optional download. Link analytics shows when each named recipient opened a link and how long they spent with it.

Link analytics and password protection are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best design agency in Seoul?

There is no single answer, as it depends on the brief. For recent recognition and visibility, studio fnt led the 63 Building identity in 2026, Everyday Practice has a broad 2026 programme for cultural clients and consumer brands, and MYKC’s Osulloc work was covered by Design+ in October 2026.

What is the difference between a Seoul design studio and a branding agency?

The line is loose, and many studios do both. The firms here tend to start from graphic design, publishing, packaging or objects. Firms that lead with strategy and naming, such as Plus X and CFC, are on our list of branding agencies in Seoul.

Which Seoul design studios work with museums and cultural institutions?

Sulki and Min, Everyday Practice, studio fnt, Rojotype, paika and Workroom all have substantial cultural portfolios. Clients across that group include MMCA, SeMA, the Nam June Paik Art Center and the Asia Culture Center.

Which Seoul studios specialise in packaging?

Thomas Studio is the packaging specialist on this list, with 2026 redesigns of Hot6 and Kkokkalcorn. MYKC and Studio OKGO also do packaging as part of wider identity projects, and MYKC has won Red Dot and iF awards for that work.

Do Seoul design studios work with international clients?

Several do. SWNA has worked with Google and Fritz Hansen, Sulki and Min have designed for the Guggenheim and M+, and Studio OKGO lists a network in Paris, New Zealand and India. It is worth asking whether the project team works in English day to day, and how contracts and invoicing are handled across borders.

Related lists

Design agencies in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Singapore · Sydney

More in Seoul: Creative agencies · Branding agencies · UX design agencies · Advertising agencies · Photography studios · Animation

Run your studio on Fabric: Fabric for designers · Graphic design agencies on Fabric · Best design feedback tools