Busan City Recognized for Global Design! ... Foreigner-Friendly Busan-Style Tourist Signage
Published 12 Apr.2023 10:32(KST)
Updated 07 Aug.2025 16:04(KST)
Winner of the Grand Prize in Product Design at the World's Top Design Competition 'Red Dot Design Award'
Leading International Tourism City Project, 2.6 Billion KRW Invested and Development of Independent Guide Signage
Busan City’s ‘Busan-style Tourist Information Sign,’ developed as part of the international tourism city promotion project, won the main prize in the Product Design category at the Red Dot Design Award.
The Red Dot Design Award, established in 1955, is the world’s largest and most prestigious design competition, organized by the Design Center of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.
Alongside Germany’s iF Design Award and the United States’ IDEA, it is considered one of the world’s top three design awards, recognizing excellence in three categories: product design, brand & communication design, and concept design. This year, the Product Design category received entries from 60 countries across 51 categories.
The awarded ‘Busan-style Tourist Information Sign’ is part of the international tourism city project selected by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2020. With a total budget of 2.6 billion KRW, including 1.3 billion KRW in national funding, it was developed by the city and the Busan Design Promotion Agency as a unique, foreigner-friendly tourist information sign exclusive to Busan.
The sign features ▲installation by type (Types A to E) according to location ▲information displayed in four languages (Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese) ▲colors and height designed for color vision deficiency and wheelchair users ▲application of international standard pictograms ▲maps oriented to the user’s viewing direction ▲and QR codes linked to the Busan Tourism Portal, Visit Busan.
A city official stated, “With the endemic phase of COVID-19 and the enthusiastic bid for the 2030 Expo, visitors from various countries are coming to Busan. The Busan-style Tourist Information Sign will enhance tourism convenience and contribute to Busan’s rise as a world-class international tourism city.”
From March 6 to 10, Busan City operated a ‘Tourism Environment Intensive Inspection Week’ to carefully review the city’s tourism conditions from the perspective of visitors, inspecting overall tourism facilities including the tourist information signs.
Furthermore, the city plans to continuously maintain and improve the tourist information signs through regular inspections even after the inspection week.
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