[Distribution Hot People] Delivered the 'Everyday Fantasy' of Christmas Amid COVID-19

Song Soyoung, Visual Design Part Designer (Manager), Twosome Place Design Team

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seon-ae] A Twosome Place store located in the heart of Gangnam. From the store entrance, the window decorated lavishly for Christmas catches the eye. The moment you open the door and step inside, the ceiling installation that looks like light purple snow is falling and the Christmas tree decorated with purple lights create a feeling as if you have entered another world. The purple package containing the coffee and cake ordered for takeout is filled with the excitement of Christmas.

This year’s year-end sees many people choosing to buy cakes that evoke the Christmas atmosphere instead of quietly spending time at home due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). Twosome Place has accurately understood these consumer sentiments and has become the main player this Christmas season. In fact, in a survey conducted with Open Survey, Twosome was ranked first as the preferred brand for Christmas cakes, surpassing all bakery companies and coffee specialty stores.

Not only products such as whole cakes and MD items but also the dazzling visual design of the seasonal concept called ‘Winter Fantasy’ has become a big topic. On social networking services (SNS) such as Instagram and Facebook, it is easy to find posts with photos of the purple light-decorated tree displayed in Twosome stores saying “It feels like Christmas,” or photos of Twosome’s cake boxes with comments like “The box is pretty.” Illustrations that exactly replicate the ‘Winter Fantasy’ visual design presented by Twosome also occasionally catch the eye.

Song So-young, a designer (manager) of the Twosome Place design team who planned this Christmas visual design, said, “It is difficult to feel the Christmas atmosphere due to COVID-19, but the reactions that people feel Christmas at Twosome encourage us,” and explained, “We wanted customers to feel the joy of Christmas as it is, even if it is just a moment in the store for takeout, a cup of coffee received by delivery, or a cake package received as a gift.”

Manager Song is responsible for visual design that uses visual elements to convey the brand’s value and communicate. Her main tasks include planning and developing brand BI, application development and management, seasonal and new product packaging & promotional material design, and graphic design within stores.

Manager Song said, “Every year during the Christmas season, Twosome releases the most special products of the year and tries to deliver a joyful experience to customers by incorporating the season into everything customers see, such as decorations like trees, menu boards, and product packaging,” adding, “This year, we used design elements such as a dazzling castle, Ferris wheel, and fairies to express the hope of escaping from the changed daily life due to COVID-19 for a moment.” She also added, “Although some design elements could be somewhat childish, we implemented them stylishly to suit the tastes of our main customer base, people in their 20s and 30s, and created a festive Christmas atmosphere with fantastic purple colors and sparkling gold accents.”

For Manager Song, even though the season comes back every year, her mission is to plan designs that can provide visual novelty to customers and tell stories that customers can relate to. To do this, she explained that it is important to be sensitive to customer trends and to make efforts to broaden the spectrum of interests. This applies not only to the season but to all of Twosome’s designs. Manager Song cited Twosome’s design philosophy as “design at the brand-customer interface.” She introduced, “The direction Twosome pursues is to design using the brand identity and the characteristics of Twosome products so that customers can accept them more comfortably.”

This design philosophy of Twosome has also led to the honor of winning the Red Dot Design Award, one of the world’s top three design awards. In July this year, Twosome Place won the ‘2020 Red Dot Design Award’ main prize in the Brand & Communication Design category for the packaging of the home cafe brand ‘A-List’ called ‘Twosome Coffee Bean Bag Package.’

Manager Song said, “The key to success was designing simply so that customers could intuitively understand the characteristics of the coffee bean blends, reflecting Twosome Place’s goal of aspiring to be a more professional and systematic coffee brand.” She implemented a modern and figurative graphic system centered on the brand’s core design element, the ‘square’ shape, and systematically expressed the characteristics of each coffee bean blend such as acidity, roasting, and body by using color and texture.

Manager Song’s future goal is continuous empathy from customers. She expressed her ambition, saying, “In the future, we plan to deliver Twosome Place’s identity, product lineup characteristics, and seasonal themes in visuals that customers can relate to more and accept comfortably.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.