Kia Studio Brand New CI Design System Site

Movement that inspires. Our new slogan embodies our belief that mobility is key to creating progress and inspires ideas that can help enrich the lives of those around us.

Kia Studio: A Guideline Platform for the New Kia

On January 6, 2021, Kia unveiled a new CI to the world to create a new vision and customer experience in the era of M.E.C.A (Mobility, Electrification, Connectivity, Autonomous).

Kia’s new CI was not simply a change of symbol but the result of a new challenge through reflection on, succession of and innovation in all its brand assets, including the slogan. The client wanted the results of all these efforts to be shared not only with Kia employees but also with marketers and creators around the world.

Background

Because a global brand works with many regional subsidiaries and partners, systematic management of design assets is essential for brand consistency. In January 2021 Kia unveiled a new CI worldwide for the M.E.C.A era — the result of rethinking and renewing not just the symbol but every brand asset, including the slogan. Kia needed a brand operations platform to share this work quickly and securely with employees and with marketers and creators around the world, while preventing careless changes and loss of quality.

Solution

From October 2020 to February 2021 we built KIA Studio, a brand asset management platform. With few precedents to learn from, we worked closely with Kia's brand managers on how brand assets should be managed and extended. It systematically holds everything from the CI guideline to communication, digital and space guidelines and countless resources, with security through a permission structure linked to the internal HR system. Assets can be downloaded one by one or as sets, and administrators can extend menus and choose how content is accessed, improving operating efficiency.

Key Features

• A global digital platform based on the new CI design system

• Permission-based access control linked to security systems

• Single and set downloads of graphic assets

• One-source brand operations for global subsidiaries and partners

To provide a platform where Kia’s new brand can be freely used as a source of inspiration in every area, we built “Kia Studio,” a brand asset management platform, from October 2020 to February 2021.

Because examples of such platforms were very limited, there was a great deal of communication with Kia’s brand managers about how brand assets should be managed and how they could be extended.

As a result, Kia Studio systematically manages guidelines in many areas, from the CI Guideline to the Communication, Digital and Space Guidelines, along with countless resources, and provides services through which users can actively experience the Kia brand. It also improved operating efficiency by letting administrators extend menus and choose how content is accessed in a variety of ways.

Through this project, Saltcake showed the client that it is not only a company that excels at brand communication, but one that is capable in brand management as well.