Elle Kim
Elle Kim is a designer and creative director navigates diverse media platforms with a passion for storytelling and crafting brand expression and experiences that resonate with audiences. She has led and mentored creative teams, redefining the designer's role as a catalyst for change by fostering new perspectives and pushing the boundaries of design. 

Most recently, she served as the Director of Design, leading the design team at the Museum of Modern Art. In this capacity, she oversaw large-scale, mission-driven projects, guiding the strategic direction and design development to expand and engage our audience across various touchpoints including brand identity, exhibitions, in-gallery experiences, wayfinding, education, events, and advertising.

Currently, she is working as a design consultant across the fields of art and design. 

Linkedin
Select projects2004-2022
elle.je.kim@gmail.com

MoMA 
— Brand design system
In October 2019, MoMA reopened to the public with newly expanded spaces and unprecedented ways to show our collections. Building on our 90 year history, MoMA Design studio created a new adaptable design system of modular layers to embody the energy and dynamism of our expansion. 

In collaboration with:
MoMA In-house Design team (under the direction of Rob Giampietro, then Director of Design), Commercial Type, Order, and PepRally


MoMA 
— Education design system
For over 80 years, MoMA has championed an experimental, research-driven approach to museum education, aiming to foster engagement with art across all ages and abilities. Anchored by our founding director Alfred Barr's vision of MoMA as a "laboratory," we developed a scalable education design system that expresses the experimental, playful, and inviting nature of our programs. Adhering to a core framework of fonts, sizes, grids, and colors, the system allows flexibility to present information concisely and accessibly while catering to diverse audiences, including children, teenagers, seniors, and those with special needs. 

In collaboration with:
MoMA In-house Design team (under the direction of Rob Giampietro, then Director of Design)





MoMA 
— Wayfinding design system
To enhance the experience for our 3 million annual visitors navigating an additional 40,000 sq ft, our design team reimagined the entire visitor journey, which included refining touchpoints such as the visitor guide and integrating digital and architectural wayfinding systems for seamless navigation of the complex space.

In collaboration with:
Gensler NY (wayfinding strategy, design, and production), 
MoMA Digital Media (digital wayfinding)




MoMA Exhibition
— Items: Is Fashion Modern?
Items: Is Fashion Modern? is an investigation of 111 garments and accessories that have had a profound impact on our lives in 20th and 21st centuries. Driven by objects, not designers, the exhibition focuses on the many relationships between fashion and functionality, culture, aesthetics, politics, religion, labor, identity, economy, and technology.

Curators: Paola Antonelli, Michelle Millar Fisher
Designer: Elle Kim, Kevin Ballon







MoMA Exhibition 
— Automania
Automania is an in-depth look at an object that has been at the center of innovation, social transformation, planet’s ecosystem, and critical debate among designers and artists. 

As a throughline from the exhibition to marketing campaigns and retail posters, we took the conflicting feelings to car culture in the 20th century, such as compulsion, fixation, desire, and rage and juxtaposed with evocative imagery of the iconic objects to convey a wide range of emotions and key themes that underpin the exhibition.  

Curators: Juliet Kinchin, Andrew Gardner, Paul Galloway
Designers: Derek Flynn, Damien Saatdjian, Kevin Ballon
Motion designer: Fionn Breen







MoMA Exhibition 
— Robert Heinecken: Object Matter
Coming from the vibrant art scene of 1960s Los Angeles, Robert Heinecken called himself a “parra-photographer” and experimented with different mediums and limitless photographic processes to push the boundaries of traditional photography. Drawing on the countless pictures in magazines, books, pornography, television, and even consumer items such as TV dinners, he uses found images to explores how mass media shapes our daily lives, especially concerning gender, sex, and violence. 
 
Curators: Eva Respini, Drew Sawyer
Designer: Elle Kim




MoMA Exhibition 
— The Original Emoji by Shigetaka Kurita
To announce the acquisition of the NTT DOCOMO’s original set of 176 emoji to the MoMA collection, we celebrated these humble masterpieces of design with our visitors through telling a story of its critical impact in the growth of a new visual language. The integration included displaying all 176 emoji on a wall with digital screens sharing their history and influence on mobile communication. Additionally, we crafted playful text messages translated into 9 languages to welcome international visitors.

Curators: Juliet Kinchin, Paul Galloway
Designer: Elle Kim, Kevin Ballon
Motion designer: Paul Danhauser