“Let’s work together.”

Hello. This is Min Guhong.

“Let’s work together.” At the invitation of my senior colleague Park Hwalsung, I became Workroom’s fourteenth member. I will use 14@wkrm.kr, the email address that has been with me for more than five years, until January 31, 2022. Kevin Kelly, Wired’s founding editor-in-chief, often emphasizes a saying that gave me some encouragement in making this decision, at once large and small: “Measure twice, cut once.”

Workroom is so special and precious to me that I do not want to call it merely a “workplace,” and it is difficult to casually say I am “leaving.” I feel that as soon as I finish the sentence, it will become true. Over the remaining month, I will wrap up the work I have been involved in. Until I find the perfect expression, I would like to continue, in some form, what my senior colleague Kim Hyungjin jokingly but sincerely called “a relationship in which we exploit each other without awkwardness.”

On February 22, 2022—a date containing no fewer than six of my favorite number, 2—I will move to Ahn Graphics Lab, or AG Lab, an independent division of Ahn Graphics (AG). (For your information, this also changes the host of Min Guhong Manufacturing, the parasitic company I have kept going. New Order, which calls itself a “liberal arts course for modern people,” will continue at Tastehouse and Studio Pie.) I am its only member so far, and my title is, rather embarrassingly, “director,” but please feel free to call me whatever you usually do.

AG Lab is a sprout, a spore, or a side branch of Ahn Graphics. It aims to (1) use the legacy Ahn Graphics has built in Korean design over some thirty-five years as material to plan and carry out projects, large and small, offering inspiration and courage to people within and beyond the company—its members and potential clients; (2) explore through these projects different ways to produce and handle content online and offline; (3) support Min Guhong Manufacturing’s existing activities while experimenting with another model of working; (4) serve, through Min Guhong Manufacturing, as a hyperlink operating within and beyond art and design; and (5) share its successes and failures within and beyond existing educational systems, including PaTI, the Korean Society of Typography, and New Order. AG Lab’s code of conduct is: “Small, simple, unexpected, and ceaseless!” This may sound grand, but it is not very different from what I have been doing. An unplanned, unexpected episode has simply been added. Or perhaps you could think of it as my having made a good friend?

A fully equipped space is not important to AG Lab just now. With just me, my longtime business partner Laurel Schwulst, and a laptop, I will begin unofficial work over about two weeks in New York, moving between Firefly Sanctuary, Princeton University, and Linked by Air. Back in Seoul, I plan to stay light on my feet, renting a desk and chair until a physical hyperlink is in place. If you know somewhere AG Lab—and Min Guhong Manufacturing along with it—could stay, please let me know.

Without an opportunity like this, when I can embellish the facts as much as I please, I think it would be difficult to express my sincere feelings in writing. Part of what has driven me over these five-odd years has simply been the wish that the place I belong to might become a little more wonderful. I thank the members of Workroom—my seniors and colleagues, sometimes friends and teachers—for drawing out that precious feeling, and everyone with whom I have made memories. (I would like to thank you individually, but after careful calculation, a year appears to be a little too short.) Thanks to Workroom, I spent my early and mid-thirties happily and beautifully. I ask for your continued support as I put what I heard and learned there to good use, quoting it and putting it into practice.

I wish you all a happy new year, and ask for your interest and affection for Workroom, AG Lab, and Min Guhong Manufacturing in 2022.

Yours,
Min Guhong