A look inside the K-pop design machine

There’s no denying that one Korean cultural product that has caught the world’s attention over the past ten years is K-pop. From PSY to Black Pink to BTS, the energetic music of K-pop artists is listened and danced to by fans the world over. One key element to K-pop’s formula is being aggressively on trend. Lately, I’ve spotted the most impressive lettering and graphic design work on the albums and products of K-pop groups. A K-pop band produces a diverse set of products, ranging from album packaging to photo books, collectible photo cards and tour merchandise. K-pop is one of the few musical genres out there where physical product sales still rake in a substantial portion of revenue (in 2023, physical album sales accounted for 31 per cent of the total overseas K-pop sales*). Additionally, I suspect that with the growing interest in vinyl, concert and merchandise sales becoming a larger portion of artist revenue and a new generation obsessed with media nostalgia, there is a boom of music design happening and K-pop agencies are clearly paying attention to the details. So, what are some exemplary designs that compel my bold observations?

I think the starting point began with the design direction of Aespa’s debut EP Savage. The album cover features chrome lettering of Savage in a heavy-metal and video game-inspired symmetrical composition. The word appears to be bursting out of a liquid threshold. The meaning behind this design is tied to the complex backstory of Aespa and the virtual world of Flat, where each member has avatars, or “Aes”. As part of their promotional package they employed the trendsetting photographer Bryan Hyunh, known for his fantastic virtual backgrounds and costuming. Aespa has continued to be hyper aware of graphic design trends and they have returned to this futuristic gothic style with their first studio LP Armageddon, which sports a circular mark in the form of a crop circle.

Another group who has been employing hot design talent is the boy group, Seventeen. The lettering for their recent Right Here world tour caught my eye. The graphic identity was developed by designer and Smile Flower Studio member Phillip Kim. The custom lettering contains Kim’s trademark typographic flare and grotesque embellishments, which felt like a new direction for the group. When I asked Phillip about the work he’s done for K-pop agencies, he shared some insight into the unique parameters of the genre, stating: “K-pop design is all about visualising the artist’s message in a way that fans can intuitively understand and relate to.” This revealed the interactive dimension to K-pop design by considering the receiving fans.

Designer Park Shinwoo shared a similar sentiment about the process of working with K-pop groups. Park, who runs Paper Press, had worked on a unique project for the infamous NewJeans, the NewJeans Yearbook 2022-23. The NewJeans Yearbook is a product directed at fans, capturing the group’s activities and invites the “bunnies” (the official fan name) to record the year together. Park describes the process of the project, detailing how “we had to create a graphic system that kept the core concept, but changed its appearance within the [package], like a living organism. We worked on a dynamic image system, creating three versions of the [NewJeans] logo that changed depending on the nature of the album, or a single logo that changed shape to match [different] songs.” The project’s design process reveals the opportunities for dynamism and flexibility within the graphic systems developed for various groups.

In a similar vein, the global scale of K-pop presents challenging parameters for language. Such was the experience of MHTL when the studio worked on the identity for the K-pop festival, K-Con 2022, which took place in Tokyo, Japan; Los Angeles, USA, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This necessitated a graphic system that could accommodate Korean, English, Japanese and Arabic. MHTL director Mat-kkal describes the process by sharing how “K-pop content targets a global audience, so much of the design work often requires a multilingual typography system. We created guidelines to set up characters for different countries, including Korean, English, Japanese, [Arabic], and Chinese, and apply them with colours to match the mood of each country.” The result was a dynamic, bubbly and straightforward system of bright tones and flat graphic shapes.

MHTL’s K-pop clients include Weverse, a social media platform for K-pop groups owned and operated by HYBE. For Weverse, the studio developed the editorial design of the Weverse magazine and oversaw the art direction of several features including the debut interview of girl group, Illit. When asked about what makes K-pop design unique, Mat-kkal shares a compelling answer that I believe also aligns with the studio’s own penchant for flair and attitude. She states: “I believe that the Korean ‘bbong (뽕끼)’ is an important foundation for the development of K-pop, which refers to the maximisation of emotions, often through exaggeration, to bring out the best in people. I’m proud that K-pop, which is a unique way to incorporate this Korean sentiment into Western pop, is doing so well in the world”. “Bbong” definitely could be an explanation for the vivacious variety of graphic styles at work within K-pop projects, and some employ subcultural references that fans may or may not understand.

Such was the experience of Studio Bbareunson director Kim Dohyun when they worked on a promotional website for Idol Key’s Tongue Tied Japanese single. The project featured Key, a member from the group Shinee, acting as a fortune teller. The promotional website incorporated a graphic style reminiscent of web 1.0 sites and an old Korean social media site called Cyworld (사이월드). Kim shared with me how the project led him to researching absurd and rarely used typefaces to pull off the referential look. The design references in K-pop design aren’t relegated to just pop or subculture. Alongside the K-pop industry’s voracious appetite for design trends runs several parallel concerns.

Although Kim of Studio Bbareunson enjoyed the experience on Key’s project and other works for groups like Riize and solo artist Minho, he has concerns about some industry practices. “In the case of physical albums, there are various components, and people buy dozens or hundreds of copies to win fan signings and other events, and I worry about environmental pollution,” says Kim. This is an ironic consequence of K-pop’s success in making the physical album desirable to fans, but it has elicited greedy sales practices by distributors on all levels, from agencies conceiving of the products to record stores offering bundled pre-orders. Mat-kkal admits her own reservations by sharing that “I personally have been consuming K-pop for more than 20 years since the early days of K-pop, and I feel that recent K-pop, music, fashion, beauty, music videos, and design work all have a similar tendency to be consumed too quickly and stimulatingly, which leads to fatigue.” It appears that the energetic cocktail that is K-pop can become tiring and isn’t without its detractors. So, will the adage of ‘all good things come to an end’ become true for K-pop? Industry-wide growth has been declining for several years, especially with the military service of BTS members. However, it is my hope the attention paid to K-pop will continue to push Korean design culture into new territories.

Closer Look

James shares some not-to-be-missed Seoul gems including a “museum to the pencil”, a new design exhibition, and a screenprinting workshop.

• For those obsessed with handwritten anything or have a deep appreciation for an 4B lead then Black Heart in Yeonnam-dong is your place. The small shop is like a museum to the pencil and carries writing tools from the globe over.

• Local design personality Moonsick Gang recently opened his first solo exhibition titled Sunkiss. The show is up until 8 March in the Itaewon neighborhood gallery Foundry Seoul.

• Gang’s exhibition features some impressive screenprinting by another local gem, Miniprint Seoul. If you have some time, I recommend signing up for one of their workshops, or if you’re a local creative in the area look into their memberships. Albert and his partner are incredibly nice and offer help in both Korean and English.