Unlocking KB Kookmin Card’s Global Design Award Success: The Surprising Power of Plate Design

KB Kookmin Card Achieves ‘Grand Slam’ at World’s Top 3 Design Awards
Shinhan Card Wins Grand Prize at Germany’s ‘iF Design Award’ for 3 Consecutive Years
67% of card consumers “have experience issuing a card because of its design”

The ‘KB Kookmin WE:SH (Wish) Card’ design, which won the world’s top three design awards.

The card industry is showing off its design competitiveness by winning a number of global design awards. The card plate, which is set to a common standard of 54mm in width and 85.5mm in height, is a means of communication with customers for card companies. Customers decide to issue cards based on the card plate design alone, and sometimes a single design can have a big marketing effect. Accordingly, the card industry is trying to improve its competitiveness by introducing unique and creative designs on the card plate.

According to the card industry on the 24th, the design of KB Kookmin Card’s flagship product, the ‘KB Kookmin WE:SH (Wish) Card’, won the grand prize at the ‘IDEA Awards’, a world-renowned design award hosted by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

Wish Card previously won the grand prize at the ‘iF Design Award’ in March of this year and the ‘Red Dot Design Award’ in August. This achievement is particularly significant in that it is the first in the industry to win all three of the world’s top design awards in the card design category.

The Wish Card is a representative credit card product of KB Kookmin Card that provides customized benefits according to the customer’s lifestyle, and is designed to convey a positive and sophisticated image to customers.

The card’s ‘tailored benefits’ feature was expressed in simple and intuitive forms symbolizing △singles △couples △families. It also received excellent evaluations from a panel of judges comprised of design experts from each country for sharing the enjoyable experience the brand delivers every time customers use the card through the design.

A KB Kookmin Card official said, “As a result of our efforts to present customers with creative designs that had never existed before, we have achieved the Grand Slam by sweeping all three of the world’s major design awards,” adding, “KB Kookmin Card will continue to do its best in developing designs to provide customers with a pleasant experience.”

Shinhan Card won the grand prize at the German ‘iF Design Award’ for three consecutive years.

Shinhan Card also won the grand prize at two design awards this year, gaining recognition for its brand design competitiveness. Shinhan Card won the grand prize in the communication category at the iF Design Awards in March this year for the ‘Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer The Best Shinhan Card’. This is the third consecutive year that it has won the grand prize, following the ‘Service Design’ category in 2022 and the ‘Communication’ and ‘Interior Architecture 2 categories’ category in 2023.

The Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer The Best Shinhan Card is the first foreign airline partnership card to be introduced in Korea through a strategic partnership with Singapore Airlines. It has been highly praised for creating a premium image by incorporating Singapore Airlines’ traditional batik pattern and Shinhan Card’s representative colors into the card plate using artistic techniques.

In addition, Shinhan Card not only won the grand prize in the IDEA Awards Social Impact category for its ‘Universal Shinhan Card (Braille Card and Guide)’, but also achieved the feat of winning another grand prize in the same year for its ‘Upcycling Product Design Project’.

A Shinhan Card official explained, “By winning an internationally recognized design award, Shinhan Card has proven its design prowess and brand value not only domestically but also in the global market.”

Hana Card is holding the ‘2nd Hana Card Plate Design Contest’ starting this month.

Meanwhile, Hana Card is holding the ‘2nd Hana Card Plate Design Contest’ starting this month. This contest is being held for the second time since last year, and was created to support new artists with novel ideas and unique design skills and to discover talent.

Last year, the first contest was held, and a total of 423 works were submitted, and fierce competition took place. This year’s contest will be held from September 13 to October 31. Hana Card plans to judge the entries based on criteria such as originality, trendiness, usability, suitability, and completeness.

Hana Card won the iF Design Award in 2024 for its Wonder Card. In particular, the JADE series released this year is attracting attention from the market for its differentiated card, issuance package design, and marketability.

A Hana Card official said, “We are so happy to be able to hold the contest again this year, following last year, and we are already excited to see passionate new artists once again,” adding, “We will continue to work hard so that the Hana Card Plate Contest can become an influential contest that leads card design in our country.”

The reason why card companies are putting so much effort into design is because card plates are an excellent marketing tool in the increasingly fierce competition in the card industry. The industry explains that card plate design not only has a significant impact on customers’ card issuance, but also has a significant marketing effect, such as customers voluntarily posting certification shots on their SNS.

In fact, in a survey conducted by Card Gorilla in March of this year targeting 1,239 people, about 7 out of 10 card consumers (67.2%, 832 votes) responded that they had experience with card issuance because of the plate design.

An official from the card industry said, “For card companies, card plates are a representative product and a means of communication with customers,” and “They try to convey their brand philosophy through card plates.”

He added, “We are also trying to increase our design competitiveness by making it a great marketing tool, such as character cards that allow customers to have fun with the design, as well as voluntary sharing of SNS authentication shots.”

Another industry insider said, “One of the ways card companies can market card products to customers is through card plate design,” adding, “They can secure competitiveness over other companies through unique card plates, and card products with differentiated design elements tend to receive good responses.”

[CEO스코어데일리 / 이지원 기자 / easy910@ceoscore.co.kr]

Unauthorized reproduction and redistribution prohibited> Sent on 2024-09-24 17:33:36