The best design is about creating a seamless experience, says Samsung’s design chief
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

If good design is about creating a seamless experience, there are few who understand this better than Samsung’s executive vice president Don-Tae Lee, who spoke with Time Inc. executive editor Clay Chandler at the Brainstorm Design conference in Singapore on Wednesday 7 March.
‘We always think of how we can create sense of seamlessness and cohesiveness across our products so we can deliver a singular experience to consumers,’ Lee said. As the head of Samsung’s seven corporate design centre studios (only his second job, Chandler noted), Lee oversees a staff of over 1,500 designers working to harmonise Samsung’s diverse family of products — from smartphones and TVs to home appliances and computing devices. When a customer is using a Samsung product, Lee said, the experience must be identifiable as one that flows from a Samsung product. ‘That’s the kind of seamless experience we try to achieve,’ he told Brainstorm Design.
Lee joined Samsung in 2015 from London-based design firm Tangerine, his first stop in the design world. The company also famously produced Apple design mastermind Jony Ive.
Samsung was then reeling, battling smartphone rivals Apple in a costly lawsuit and seeing off competition from Chinese upstarts Xiaomi, and Huawei. The South Korean tech and electronics giant’s last quarter profits dropped 37 per cent in 2014, while reviews found its flagship smartphone a lackluster reboot of the S4.
Lee has since overseen a reinvention of Samsung’s design identity by helping ‘move the brand of Samsung’ from being a technology-driven company to being ‘a user-and life-style centric brand.’ The company is also stepping up to competitors Apple and Google in the next major tech battlegrounds: smart home appliances like the Frame TV, a new television that’s ‘designed as a beautiful object, whether turned on or off,’ Lee said, after Samsung learned that most consumers spend four hours per day watching TV — meaning 20 hours per day, the television was turned off. ‘We realised that the TV needs to be branded into the home environment,’ Lee said, by allowing users to customise their ‘off’ display with famous pieces of art, or family photos.
The Brainstorm Design conference is jointly organised by Fortune, TIME and Wallpaper*, bringing together more than 300 top speakers and delegates from 33 countries. See more here
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Samsung website (opens in new tab) and the Brainstorm Design website (opens in new tab)
ADDRESS
Mandarin Oriental Singapore
5 Raffles Avenue
039797, Marina Square
Singapore
VIEW GOOGLE MAPS (opens in new tab)
-
The best London art exhibitions: a guide for March 2023
Your guide to the best London art exhibitions, and those around the UK in March 2023, as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
By Harriet Lloyd Smith • Published
-
Craig Green on his ‘decorated men’ and those hand-moulded leather accessories
‘They are almost like a relic,’ says British designer Craig Green of the hand-moulded leather objects that appeared as part of his S/S 2023 collection, a musing on functionality and decoration
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Wadi AlFann, AlUla’s new land art destination, is stirring creativity in the desert
Wadi AlFann – Saudi Arabia’s Valley of the Arts – hints at the scale of its ambition with an event in the desert for curators, artists and cultural leaders ahead of the completion of its site and first five artworks
By Simon Mills • Published
-
ABBA Voyage director Baillie Walsh on songs, sequins, and virtual spaces
Baillie Walsh, the director behind ABBA Voyage, one of the most advanced entertainment spectacles ever, tells Wallpaper* how the magic happens, ABBAtars and all
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
The finest Google Doodles of all time
On 20 August 1998, a week before a two-year-old Google become an incorporated company, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were heading to Burning Man festival. To mark themselves ‘out of office’ on their email signatures, they decided to overlay the famous Burning Man stick-figure on the Google logo (which then came with a Yahoo-style exclamation mark, as if it needed to announce itself). The idea lay dormant until 2010, when then-intern Dennis Hwang (who went onto become Google webmaster, amongst other more recent titles) was tasked with decorating the logo for Bastille Day, sparking eight years of marking important moments in history with a graphic, digital ephitaph. What started as an ‘out of office’ scribble has become an artform, celebrating Calder to Kadinsky; Zaha Hadid to Mies van der Rohe.
By Elly Parsons • Last updated
-
Inside Apple Park: first look at the design team shaping the future of tech
Global exclusive! Led by Evans Hankey and Alan Dye, the Apple Design Team holds enormous sway over our evolving relationship with technology. Opening the doors to their studio at Apple Park in Cupertino for the first time, they offered us a deep dive into the working processes behind their latest creations
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
Pixel 6 Pro is ‘premium redefined’ says Google’s Ivy Ross
Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president of Design for Hardware Products, on the design decisions behind the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
Vodafone Smart Tech's Tom Guy on the Internet of Things
As more and more people want smart tech to offer simpler solutions to everyday problems, Vodafone Smart Tech is here to stay
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
Microsoft’s new Windows 11 opens up a new era of OS design
‘Windows is the largest Swiss Army knife you can imagine,’ says Ralf Groene, head of design for Windows & Devices
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
Syng is rethinking the art of speaker design
Christopher Stringer and Damon Way created Syng in just three years. Here's how.
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
The new Google Nest Hub is an alarm clock on steroids
Meet your new, improved and super smart bedtime companion
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated