Skipper chats with Bumhan Yu, a designer and coder, about his perspective shaped by his linguistics and psychology background. After moving from Korea to New York City, he transitioned from academia to design, where his non-design background enriches his approach to understanding user needs and communication. His career evolved from graphic design to design operations and team dynamics, emphasizing problem understanding before solution creation. Beyond design, Bumhan maintains interests in theoretical physics and the Zettelkasten note-taking method among other topics.
During the show, we talk through a number of topics, including:
- German-speaking Bumhan comes from an academic family, with professor parents.
- Initially studying linguistics and psychology in academia, he left his psychology graduate program, worked various jobs including translation and military service in Korea, then discovered design (read: graphic design) through a trade school for executive assistants in Manhattan.
- His spatial-visual thinking style, using schematics and diagrams, led him to realize he could build a career making things. He views design as problem-solving beyond aesthetics, distinguishing between specialized "capital D" design and general "lowercase d" design.
- Bumhan's LinkedIn tagline "business of design, design of business" reflects his dual focus on design operations and organizational dynamics. At DoubleVerify, he maintains design systems, defines visual tokens, and collaborates closely with front-end engineers while focusing on systematic problem-solving approaches.
- He critiques design thinking's commodification while valuing its core principle of understanding problems before solutions, drawing inspiration from Bruce Lee's philosophy of adaptation and evolution.
- His coding skills enhance collaboration with engineers through better understanding of backend structures, while his linguistics and psychology background provides unique insights into human behavior and communication.
- Beyond design, Bumhan's also passionate about theoretical physics, particularly Carlo Rovelli's work.
Here's a photo of Bumhan's t-shirt from the episode:
Special Guest: Bumhan Yu.
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