IDEO / GSHS_2
A redesign/rebrand of the Korean home shopping company GS Home Shopping. Delivering the corporation a brand essence, identity and experience along with the launch of a sub-brand.
This was the second part of a 2-part project. The first detailed the process of establishing the brand essence. This second part touches on the work relating to the brand identity and brand experience.
IDEO is a global design consulting firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California. They are strongly associated with the design thinking approach to designing products, services, environments, brands, and digital experiences. GS Group is one of the largest South Korean corporations with severeal subsidiaries and affiliates. GS Home Shopping (now GS Shop) was their popular homeshopping entity. They split from LG Group a few years prior to this project and hired IDEO as design consultants to revamp GSHS.
After establishing the brand essence, and getting the green light for our recommended next steps – the work started.
We used what was pitched for the corporate brand as a starting point. A sub-brand one that they could experiment on without all the risk – was warmly received, so that need to be worked out as well.
I worked as part of the brand team in conjunction with the experience team – since I was a hybrid visual/ixd at the time.
Names:
After a few collaborative brainstorms we landed with 3 test names for each brand (corporate and sub) to work with.
Corporate
Sub-Brand
Sketching:
Once the names were penned down, we began a series logo explorations in our war room. Literally throwing everything up as wallpaper with various ideas for Shop, Open, One, Seed, Neda and Echo as we progressed.
We had calligraphy sessions on the peer at IDEO SF during lunches.
Sticker packs and constellations/particles were an inspiration.
Sampling of sketches for corporate and sub-brand.
Earlier on in the process, the decision was made to show 3 options for each name with taglines and associated applications (lanyard, billboard, catalogue, box, web). We made a point of showing a wide range of visual solutions with the corporate brand leaning more on the conservative side.
Along with the first round of deliverables, we put together some tagline options for both brands. The sooner we made a decision on these, the sooner we could incorporate them into the design.
Taglines for Corporate Brand
Always Open.
Go ahead and talk.
We hear you.
Express yourself.
Shop from experience.
Make it your own.
Shop the difference.
Get the real story.
An experiment in shopping.
Fit your life.
Spread your word.
Do you speak shop?
What is your story?
Experience shared.
Shop your mind.
A matrix grid was printed out that kept track of our progress on the (90) branding applications we were including in the first round's preso. We were able to crank out most of them in time but had to ommit some of the web entries – at least the directions that were not as favored.
Sampling of the aforementioned branding aplications – shipping boxes and lanyards for various options.
Identity Presentation
The concepts + applications were presented to the clients and to our surprise, the response was underwhelming. We debriefed and concluded that they probably needed time to marinate before giving us full feedback – we got back to them first.
- We recommended that the Shop logo using the ‘O’ as a container be omitted since a competitor (CJ) had just launched with something similar.
- We also suggested eliminating GS One since ‘Shop’ and ‘Open’ were stronger names.
- We took the liberty of removing ‘Echo’ from the sub-brand option in favor of ‘Neda’ and ‘Seed’ – reasoning being that they both had more Real Deal meanings.
- Finally, we asked for any suggestions before we took the concepts into testing.
So to recap, the status was now 2 for the corporate brand (Shop and Open) and 2 for the sub-brand (Seed and Neda).
While preparing to go into testing with the above naming options + associated concepts, the client got back to us last minute with a suggestion for the sub-brand (ditto), so we added it to the group.
Quickly, we started sketching (mostly logotypes) to test with in order to keep things consistent with the other options.
We landed with these three – all of them prominently using ditto marks (2 dashes similar to quote marks).
Testing
We performed internal and external testing and made it clear to GS what the goals of this phase was
What we hoped to gain from testing:
- Associations to inform our selection process; particularly strong or consistently negative reactions.
- Associations that will inform and inspire us as we refine the brand directions.
What testing will NOT enable us to do:
- Determine ‘the winner.’
- Provide statistical support for a selection.
It's important to stress this upfront since testing data and/or customer feedback shouldn't dictate the outcome of creative decisions – but instead, merely considered when making the final decision.
After consolidating testing data and multiple rounds of discussion we added everything up and chose 'Shop' and 'Ditto' as the two names to continue with.
For 'Shop', we really liked one of the ideas used for 'Open' – utlizing parenthetical brackets as a framing device for subjects that were aligned with the brand essence, The Real Deal. This was great because it acted as a nice compliment to the ditto marks puncuation motif.
Figuring out which brackets to use was our next step.
For 'Ditto' we leveraged the rounded script used for one of the 'Seed' options. This had a better feel to it (wasn't a big fan of the lowwer case e's in "seed") and the geometrical outline allowed a noticable clipping of the top the tops of the t's to create the marks.
What's also nice about the word 'Ditto' is how it can be applied in branding collateral and promotions. This is especially relevant when it comes to the client's relationship with their vendors.
Ditto (n.):
1. The same as stated before.
2. A pair of small marks (′′) used to indicate that the word, phrase, or figure given above is to be repeated.
Soopsori
believes in good craft.
Ditto.
Benton
believes in healthy cosmetics.
Ditto.
Maeil
believes in being good to the earth.
Ditto.
Uniqlo
believes in the basics.
Ditto.
Beautiful
Store believes in fair trade.
Ditto.
Tom’s
Shoes believes in giving back.
Ditto.
It was clear right away that we wanted to use the ditto mark as a stamp of quality. Something that could indicate that a product, company or vendor is in line with the beliefs of the client and would create transparency around the sourcing process to customers. This would give the customer a way to participate which was helped with loyalty over time.
In a way, by shopping with them, customers were saying "ditto" too.
Next was a series of solidifying decisions with regards to refinement of the wordmarks, color palletes and taglines until we landed with what you see below.
Once we had these nailed down, the team was mobilized. We had a long list of items to complete in order to full realize the vision we detailed in the initial pitch. This included the following...
- Experience Side
- Sample TV Segments
- Web / Sample Product Pages
- Web / Product Detail Pages
- Web / Show Page Real Life
- Web / Show Episode Page
- Web / All Products Page
- Web / Blog
- Web / Show Overview Pages
- Web / Media Player
- Web / Theme Page
- Motion / Lower Third / Product Detail
- Motion / Lower Third / Name Plate
- Motion / Lower Third / Pop-Up Info
- Motion / Logo / Ditto
- Motion / Logo / GS Shop
- Brand Side
- Print / Shipping Box
- Print / Catalogues with Themes
- Case Study / Vendor Interview
- GS Shop Guidlelines
- Ditto Guidlelines
- Photoshoot / Product Showcase
- Photoshoot / Vendors
- Photoshoot / Employees
- Photoshoot / Theme
Photoshoot / Sample Employee Photos
Vendor Interview / Mono
Photoshoot / Theme TV Segment
Application Example / Business Cards
Application Example / Pop-Up Store
I had outsourced production work for logo animations, show intros, name plates and lower thirds. That eventually fell through when the motion designer I hired ran out of bandwidth – so I handled most of storyboarding/animation through the end.
Storyboard / Show Intro
Storyboard / Ditto Logo Animation Blue
Storyboard / Lower Third / Product Detail
Storyboard / Ditto Logo Animation Pink
Storyboard / Lower Third / Pop-Up Info
Storyboard / Ditto Logo Animation Pink
Animation / Lower Third / Name Plates
Animation / Lower Third / Product Info
Animation / Ditto Logo
Animation / GS Shop Logo
Guidelines / GS Shop
Guidelines / ditto
It was a bit of a whirlwind during the final stretch but the final presentation in Korea went really well. The deliverable for ditto can be seen here ditto guidelines.