Jungmyung Lee Jungmyung Lee

What's the story behind your web cover design for Het Nieuwe Instituut Online?

_Jungmyung Lee: _Who's best at quarantine? Probably cats! Since quarantine began, my days have become all about the life of cats. With many countries hunkering down under coronavirus stay-at-home orders, Tiger King - the bizarre Netflix docuseries about a feud between disturbingly outlandish big cat owners, criminals and polygamists - became a quarantine smash in our sequestered homes. Everywhere I looked online, if it wasn't about coronavirus, it was Tiger King. Around the beginning of April, eight big cats in the Bronx Zoo tested positive for the virus, and shortly after several domestic cats also tested positive. Apparently both wild and domestic cats are susceptible to the virus just like we are.

Cats in lockdown! But without drama.

Now that I've got plenty of time to observe my cat's daily routines, I realise that there's a lot to learn from cats. Grooming - licking every inch of her coat meticulously; sitting or lying down, her ears up, her eyes wide open and her senses alert, carefully observing her surroundings; playing; eating small portions of food on a regular basis; enjoying the rays of spring sunshine; unafraid to show her contentment by making purring sounds; finding a good object to knead to reminisce about the comforts of nursing and her mother. This straightforward, 'trying-to-make-myself-happy', quintessentially optimistic attitude to life is what I want to learn from the cat. Right now, we humans are like wild animals held captive in our own cages. We should learn these pearls of wisdom in order to maintain our mental balance before an invisible Joe Exotic, Carol Baskin or Doc Antle comes for us!

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

I try to infuse it with some humour that will create either a narrative, or friction.

Is the coronavirus pandemic changing the way you work? 

Instead of working behind the computer, I read, watch and think a lot while obsessively procrastinating. While weathering a pandemic, the confinement of the body at home only allows me to open the front door in my mind, and to freely walk around wherever I want.

Jungmyung Lee is a graphic and type designer and publisher based in Amsterdam. She runs the independent type foundry J-LTF (Jung-Lee Type Foundry), whose primary focus is telling stories and exploring the life of typefaces and their emotions. Her typefaces have a life of their own which plays out across various media, including in conversations between two typefaces on exhibition walls and in rap music videos. They are also used by artists and writers in the experimental journal Real-Time-Realist, which uses writing to explore a spectrum of emotions. Published by J-LTF PRESS, the second and current issue of Real-Time-Realist explores ecstasy, joy, serenity and love.