Create a new corporate and brand Identity program and a matching design system for the Korean company Hyundai Card was a challenge met by design agencies world- wide. The Dutch agency Total Identity entered the competition with a simple, but winning proposal: Change Hyundai Card into HyundaiCard.

Hyundai Card is a Korean ‘chaebol’, part of the international Hyundai corporation. The company sells credit cards to – mainly – car owners. The image of the Hyundai card was good but at the same time branded it as ‘a credit card from the Hyundai car owner’. Diversity in target groups was much needed. This required a unique identity, one that would not be supported by the Hyundai symbol. Hyundai Card wanted a symbol that could serve as a company name and as a more generic brand name.

The symbol also had to facilitate specific brand extensions, e.g. the different credit cards of Hyundai Card for different target groups. This required a personal style for each brand extension, a unique look and feel. Brand coherence would be achieved through the consistent use of clearly recognizable general design elements.

A focus and personal approach were chosen, individuality and personality, rather than mass communication. This personal style is translated by Total identity in ‘You and I’. HyundaiCard, You and I card. By creating a symbol that bears these features HyundaiCard now has a significant position within the Hyundai family.

The visualization of the new identity is centered on the new typeface, the You- andi, a typographic family of 32 typefaces uniquely developed for HyundaiCard. An important aspect was the desire for an interesting element. This resulted in a design giving certain characters an ‘inner shape’ that exactly matched the form and size of a credit card. Total Identity also designed the basic form of the Korean version of the Youandi to facilitate the automation of the Korean fonts with over 10.000 syllable characters.

Besides typography the design program also included the design of other basic elements and the need to set them down in a technical manual. This manual not only had to contain design guidelines and instructions but also a Look and Feel guide as a source of inspiration. This guide describes in word and images the desired look of HyundaiCard.