With a career spanning fashion design and branding to UX and UI experiences, Haley Kyong A Oh’s career has been deliberately non-linear. Over more than a decade, she has worked across 4 countries and across both physical and digital mediums. This experience has helped her design cohesive, human, and system-level experiences. She has received eight international design awards from juries in Asia, Europe, and North America, placing her in a global design discussion rather than a regional market.

A Self-Reliant, International Upbringing

From an early age, Oh learned to be self-reliant. At just ten years old, her parents sent her abroad to the Philippines to learn English and adjust to life across cultures. Here, Oh fell in love with art and design, recognizing visual expression as a universal language. Living independently as a minor in a foreign country required her to handle daily life, education, and finances on her own. This experience shaped her ability to work well on international teams and projects later on.

After studying in the Philippines, Oh enrolled at the University of British Columbia before pivoting to fashion design at the Blanche Macdonald Centre. There, she gained practical experience with materials, forms, and craftsmanship. She worked as a seasonal staff member at Louis Vuitton, helping with visual merchandising and VIP events. This experience provided her with early exposure to global luxury production standards and international-scale brand systems.

Shifting to UX and UI Design

As digital platforms increasingly define how brands communicate, Oh transitioned into graphic and brand design. Upon returning to Korea, she worked as a graphic designer at a skincare company and later joined a branding consultancy. There, she was responsible for end-to-end brand systems spanning logos, websites, packaging, and multi-channel marketing assets. These systems were built for real-world use and supported consumer-facing brands instead of focusing on ideas or academic projects.

During this time, Oh’s work began receiving international recognition. She won the Asia Design Prize twice, first in 2021 and again in 2022, for distinct brand identity projects developed at YNL Design, demonstrating sustained excellence rather than a single isolated achievement. These awards are juried by international panels and recognize projects selected from a global pool of professional submissions.

Gaining New Skills and Experience

In search of a broader design perspective, Oh moved to the U.S. to pursue an MFA in Graphic Design at ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, graduating with Distinction and a 4.0 GPA. She received the ArtCenter Graduate Continuing Scholarship from 2023 to 2025, a merit-based scholarship given to a small number of high-achieving graduate students.

At ArtCenter College of Design, Oh participated in multiple sponsored studio projects with global brands such as Samsung and Cesar, collaborating across disciplines to explore future-facing product and system concepts for Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. These projects required cooperation among graphic design, UX, and industrial design, simulating the same workflows used in product development for businesses.

Her academic and experimental work earned additional recognition. In 2024 alone, Oh received two Creative Communication Awards (C2A): Student Best of Best in Brand Identity / Branding and Student Winner in Brand Identity/Branding for Peer the Seet Tarot, placing her work among the highest-ranked student projects evaluated that year.

Awards, Accolades, and Outlook

Following graduation, Oh’s work gained broader international exposure through major design competitions. In 2025, she participated in the DNA Paris Design Awards, winning in the Typography, Branding, and Communication Design categories, for projects including the Chinati Foundation and Extinction Songs.

That same year, Oh’s graduate thesis, Venus Issue, received a Bronze Award at the WBDS Creative Design Awards and a Commended distinction in a separate category, further highlighting recognition across juried platforms. Between 2021 and 2025, her work has been recognized by at least 5 independent international award bodies, reflecting consistent, peer-reviewed validation.

In addition to awards, Oh has gained international press coverage, including a feature in the Korea Herald, which has increased her work’s visibility beyond design audiences and into mainstream media.

Ambition for the Future of Innovation

Now based in Seattle, Oh has focused her creative energy on understanding emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI). Her dual experience as a graphic designer and UX designer has positioned her well for a career in speculative design, a valuable skillset in an era increasingly defined by AI.

Moving forward, Oh will continue to grow as an advanced designer while creating space for human-centered experiences with emerging technologies and AI-driven products, aiming to influence system-level design through collaboration, research, and mentorship to deliver lasting value. In this way, Haley Kyong A Oh intends to shape how future technologies are both designed and experienced.