2024 Total Eclipse Poster – Dongjae “Krystofer” Kim

Dongjae “Krystofer” Kim is a Senior Science Animator at the Conceptual Image Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and a Master of Business Administration and Master of Arts from the Design Leadership program at the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He combines various art and design disciplines, including fine arts, graphic design, creative coding, animation, and design research to help tell NASA’s story.

Where did you get inspiration for the eclipse poster?

“I was contemplating how the eclipse is an event that is beyond human scale physically and chronologically. It will look differently outside of my myopic view from this planet and it will occur after I am gone for many years to come. With this perspective, I thought of how future space explorations with permanent settlements on the Moon will view this event. While searching for scientific references, I remembered a video piece by our own NASA Goddard media team ‘An EPIC View of the Moon’s Shadow During the June 10 Solar Eclipse’ in 2021 and used it as a visual reference.”

What inspired you to become an artist?

“My inspiration came via Pixar and Ghibli animated films and shows I watched as a child. Despite being a little dyslexic Korean kid, I was welcomed into the world of each story. I found it magical that artists could seemingly create everything from nothing or something fantastical from mundane ideas and objects. And I loved that art enables you to communicate your own ideas as well as learn about others creating common ground.”