Serviceplan Korea

As one of three creatives at Serviceplan Korea, I participated from the beginning of naming to eCommerce launching for two products: Gold S31, and Gold P31. The idea was inspired by looking from gamer’s point of view. For the target, building and upgrading PC is also a part of their game. Hence, we communicated electronics with Science-fiction world concept to create game-like experience. The world is based on an extraterritorial planet made of circuitboards, mysterious metal stones revitalizes the planet with a power. Each tier metals are defined with own characteristics. A man in red hoody represents a player, a pioneer, and an avatar of SK hynix. As a Korean brand launched primarily on Amazon U.S., the challenge was to outstand and provide credibility with premium, international look. Although I participated in every process, my major contribution in branding was made with key references, visual idea, and finding a fit CG artist to collaborate. Personally into diverse fantasy genres and watching game reviews became sources and made it easy to find keywords to search for. For example, I suggested Sci-Fi docking station visuals to conceptualize communicating “arrival” for Gold S31 and HUD visuals for its “credibility.” For Gold P31, I researched concept arts of spaceship to visualize product’s physical characteristics and proposed key references for CG artist to design. 

Key to branding SSD product as a game item, the metal stone symbolizes each product and its characteristic. I was in charge of designing the metal shapes and package (box and product label). I drew hundreds of metal shapes referencing images of minerals, game illustrations, and sculptures. SATA is a product in hand size and a metal shell, which metal is designed more round and rock solid. PCIe is a small product with 2mm thickness and chips exposed. So metal was designed sleek and linear in vertical. The top and bottom narrows down to look light.

Package design was another key to link Sci-fi visual online with products offline. On one side, it was designed to stand out in eCommerce and review videos. A black box and a vibrant iconic metal outstands on white eCommerce interfaces. On the other, it’s designed to physically feel like holding a game item in a hand by the box and product label. While Gold S31 used pre-made boxes, I was in charge of entire design for Gold P31 package. For size, I designed vertically that it differentiates from other brands and a better grab. When unboxed, the metal continues on the product label. In addition, client requested an eco-friendly packaging, which I found a pulp tray factory and designed tray with iPad 3D tool learned over a weekend. I was also in charge of print orders and supervising, which balancing colors for gold in prints was a challenge. 

Specifically targeting eCommerce, digital content was key to communication. I was one of two designers for Amazon U.S. contents, and person in charge for Korean eCommerce contents. Designed a series of Sci-fi visuals to narrated a story like a video while conceptualizing product characteristics. Each eCommerce platform had different format and cultural expectations. While Amazon limited one product content to 6 modules, Korean eCommerce’s product content is provided in one long scroll image with consumers expecting much more details. As the brief, simply utilizing Amazon content was not adequate. Hence, I studied and proposed new content flow to the account manager and client. In design, I focused on that users mostly read on mobile, scroll directly to find the information they’re interested in, and experience inconvenience when they need to zoom in to read small texts. To place convenient legibility at the core, I grouped each section with consistent layout structure, optimized sizes, distinguished the content from a busy eCommerce platform with a continuous black background. Moreover, selected Korean font according to pair with the brand’s English font and for web compatibility.

Beyond limits on eCommerce, the website aimed to provide integrated brand experiences like a game. I was in charge of the website renewal according to Gold P31 and Korea launching. In order to create a more immersive experience, I expanded the Gold P31 concept — a pioneering spaceship — animating products to fly in and out over space backgrounds, setting different scroll speed images and texts to give depth of field, and subtle zoom-in for feature concept visuals. Outsourcing with a developer, I learned and used HTML and CodePen animation open sources to address specific designations directly and efficiently.