For the past 40 years, the College of Design has become an important center of design education in Korea with its educational philosophy of ‘design for human, nature and future’ and with its educational goal of ‘educating designers with professionalism, interdisciplinary knowledge and ethical awareness.’ Despite the rapid changes in the Korean society and the various constraints of the educational environment, the College of Design has grown steadily to date because the College of Design has inherited the responsibility of the educators to provide high-quality education, the design awareness of its members needed by the modern industrial society, and the tradition of pragmatic education. In addition to the constant transformation of formal curriculum, the College of Design has been embodying innovative ideas through the Exhibition of College of Design, the Funding Project for the College Specialization, globalization, and improvement of college entrance evaluation. Furthermore, the College of Design has produced explorer-type talents who pioneer and embrace new areas required by the times from design ‘problem-solving’ to ‘value creation’ design for human, nature, and future.

Looking back on the history of Korean design, designers with their own expertise have gained influence in various field: industrial design such as product design, graphic design, and fashion design had been introduced into our society in the 1970s, car design and CF design had emerged in the 1980s, green design, digital media design, website design, ubiquitous design, and jewelry design, had become active in the 1990s, and game design, interaction design, entertainment design and smartware design in the 2000s. Likewise, it was many graduates of Kookmin University College of Design, who were brave enough to challenge the ‘creative industry,’ the most barren and unknown area in the Korean society. This is the results of the spirit of challenge that the College of Design has inherited, and the seed of the design education with the DNA of innovation became fruitful in the design field of our society.

The advancement of cutting-edge technologies is giving new possibilities that are becoming increasingly unpredictable in our living environment. As a result, human wisdom is becoming more important than ever about what to choose, intend, and realize for a better life. Now that the future is in its present form, the College of Design seeks to continue its role of design as a holistic platform that unearths important values of human life and transforms the values into new values, as well as its history of infinite possibilities.