Kia's Jeongbin Moon: "Kia Design will continue to create designs that are emotional and warm."

Having worked for Kia Design for many years, I have seen its unwavering dedication to innovation and meaningful progress. Especially following Karim Habib joining Kia in 2019 [as head of design], we have significantly intensified our efforts to elevate the value of the Kia brand and to drive more changes and initiatives aimed at benefiting both society and the environment.

At Kia Design, we are shaping such transformations and initiatives through our design philosophy, ‘Opposites United’. This is about making a compelling synthesis of divergent ideas, resulting in a creative tension that fuels innovation. Based on this philosophy, all Kia designers and employees work in close alignment across our respective roles to produce innovative and creative designs through the contrast, tension and harmony of opposing elements.

We have been crafting spatial and temporal designs that embody Kia’s brand purpose, ‘Movement Inspires Ideas’ and I am confident that Kia Design has achieved a series of impactful and successful results throughout our journey.

At the inception of ‘Opposites United’, we spent a significant amount of time exploring how we could authentically communicate this philosophy to our customers. After careful deliberation, Karim and I, together with Hyunsoo Han who leads the design communication team reached a decision to take a different approach: to hold an exhibition of creative design artworks with a singular focus on articulating the essence of our design philosophy and without any association with cars. The aim was to explain, share and explore diverse interpretations of ‘Opposites United’ in an open and creative way.

Grounded in this concept, we held various exhibitions at the Gwangju Design Biennale, Seoul Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) and Milan Design Week. Between 2021 and 2023, we organised exhibitions in collaboration with in-house Kia designers and in 2024 and 2025, we adopted a new approach by working with external artists to reinterpret the design philosophy of Kia. Over the course of this process, we have had the opportunity to reflect on our philosophy from different angles and plan to continue broadening its interpretation through even more diverse and creative explorations in the future.

Currently, we are facing numerous challenges, including accelerated changes drivenby artificial intelligence (AI), Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), robotics and most notably, the rise of Chinese automotive companies that offer a wide range of content at highly competitive prices. I see these changes as challenges we must face and opportunities we must rise to. These shifts are not only relevant to design but also represent critical transformations that the entire company must consider in shaping its future strategic direction.

To navigate through these challenges and further pursue more creative design, we decided to evolve our design philosophy. After going back to the basics and engaging in deep reflection, we focused on redefining the characteristics that Kia Design will continue to pursue in the future.

We call the evolved philosophy ‘Opposites United Evo’ and it is built upon three newly defined cultural characteristics: Culture Vanguard, Creative Risk-Takers and Relentless Innovators. These serve as a foundation to enable Kia designers to propose diverse directions through project-specific concept pairings. Through this process, Kia Design aims to unlock greater creativity and usability, paving the way for more diverse and meaningful mobility experiences for our customers.

Other than our design philosophy, a tightly integrated system of collaboration across teams is one of the most important aspects – and a major strength – of Kia Design. Under Karim’s leadership, I work with John Buckingham of the exterior design group, Won-Kyu Kang of the interior design Group and Marilia Biill of the colour, materials and finishes (CMF) group, to drive production design.

At the same time, Jochen Paesen of the future design group and Teck-Koun Kim of the design operation group are playing key roles in leading the Kia design teams in Korea.

We also have Tom Kearns at Kia Design America, Oliver Samson at Kia Design Europe and Seungmo Lim at Kia Design China, who are working intensively with their respective teams to help Kia stay competitive in global markets and maintaining a strong collaborative spirit. Most recently, we have launched a new styling design team in India, further expanding our global framework alongside our existing digital design team.

I believe our work culture is a vital part of the Kia Design organisation with its leaders making ongoing efforts to foster a more flexible and creative environment and organisational culture. Kia Design will continue to embrace advanced technologies, but also create designs that are emotional and warm, easy to use, and timeless. Designs that people won’t grow tired of and will want to see again and again.

This interview was originally published in Car Design Review 12. To order your copy, please click here.