2019 - 2020 Design Trends · IP Image

In this article, we will share the second part of the ISUX design trend report (please click for the first part), regarding insights into the IP industry. IP characters are often used as marketing tools because they can provide a relatable and positive image when applied to a product or service. With the increase in the number of children-at-heart adults, the IP character market has been expanding recently. Although IP characters were regarded as something for children in the past, now as a consumer-related product culture, they are more concentrated among those in their 20s and 30s. People are eager to buy limited editions designed by IP characters.

This study will first share the overall process of the IP market and introduce some recent notable IP brand cooperation cases.

Each country has its own culture and emotions, and their popular IP characters will also be different. But when we look through these characters, we find that good characters are popular all over the world. This traditional IP character in animation, comics and games has become very popular. Nowadays, emoticon stickers used by many people in communication apps are also very popular. These characters created online not only stay online, but are also used in a variety of products to compete with traditional IP characters in the offline market.

Scale of the global IP industry

According to data from the Korean Creative Content Agency, the global IP market grew by approximately US$180.6 billion in 2018, compared with 2009 (151 billion USD) increased by 20%.

Characteristics of the IP industry

We found that the IP market has four characteristics. First, unique storytelling; second, cross-border is easier and more popular than simple consumer products. So multicultural sensitivity is important. Third, business licenses are also important because they account for 50% of total sales. Fourth, there are many cases of "one source, multiple uses" that convert and expand original content into various forms.

Traditional IP characters born in comic books, TV and games have been popular for a long time. With the increase of communication apps such as Kakao and LINE, emoticon stickers that help express users’ emotions have become more and more popular. The more popular it becomes. In addition, with the development of the IP industry, many companies have created IP brands with unique stories based on artists that many brands want to cooperate with. China's Molly, South Korea's Sticky Monster Lab and Super Fiction are representative example.

1. Creative Story

If you look at the characteristics of popular IPs, you will find that they have a unique and easy-to-remember story, which is similar to Our daily lives are no different and can easily trigger tinnitus. The two newly designed IP characters, Niniz and BT2, have a very interesting backstory.

2. Witty and interesting

As characters are used as emoticon stickers, humorous IP characters that can convey various emotions are becoming more and more popular. Rather than being simply cute, being silly and unique is more popular.

3. Simple shapes

IP characters with simple and cute shapes are very popular. A character that looks very simple, not only has a cute and beautiful appearance, but its basic shape can also be applied to a variety of products.

4. High-quality 3D shapes and textures

With the development of 3D technology, 3D characters with vivid textures are also very popular. Attractive even for adults.

China

1) Various animal characters are very popular. 2) Characters from other countries also have high popularity.

South Korea

1) Emoticon stickers in communication APPs are very popular. 2) Compared with a single brand image, family type is more popular.

United States

1) The characters in the animation are quite popular. 2) Although it looks a bit rough, it is an interesting presence in Internet memes.

Japan

1) Most of them have a unique hand-painted style. 2) Mostly from games and animations. 3) It is used in various fields, such as local government and transportation cards.

Many roles recently are expanding their businesses by partnering with other industries. Be it a fashion brand, a popular artist, or a product with state-of-the-art technology, these collaborations often expand the character's brand image. From a company or brand perspective, personas can convey a friendly and positive image. We summarized several noteworthy cases of role collaboration.

Covernat The character collaboration could easily have become cute and cute, but since they only used Ryan who has no expression, it also fits Covernat's unique street brand image very well.

Anti Social Social Club X BT21

Anti Socal Social Club has used their flexible logo in various phrases or brand names. In this collaboration, they combined the iconic logo with BT21’s character, brand name, and a logo that lacks cuteness and is slightly clumsy, which perfectly coordinates ASSC’s unique brand style.

Nike X Super Fiction

This is a joint name between Nike and Super Fiction on Airmax day in 2019. Users can create character lottery tickets and upload them to Instagram using hash tags. The character characteristics of Super Fiction have been well applied on Nike, and activities using SNS have attracted quite a few young consumers.

KAWS X SESAME Street X Uniqlo

Fashion brand Uniqlo launched the KAWS UT (UNIQLO T-Shirt) is a unique T-shirt that selects and applies many trendy cultural concepts, such as music, art, movies, animation, etc.

Bape Bape uses its unique camouflage patterns along with the Snoopy character on a wide variety of products.

Etude House The "Happy with Piglet Collection" is a limited-edition offering with cute packaging and a variety of products that can create cute looks that bring good luck in the New Year.

VT Cosmetics They use BT21’s image in their packaging design and recently opened a pop-up store.

Esquire Become their cover model. The design of 3D Ryan combined with real background makes the character look more real.

Maison Kitsune X Super Fiction

This is a collaborative project between Super Fiction and global fashion brand Maison Kitsune. They designed a toy character that reflected Maison Kitsun's foxy characteristics. This large sculpture with the image of a fox is on display in front of the first Maison Kitsune store in Korea.

Helvetica Because it is the first time for non-materialized fonts and character brands, this cooperation has attracted the attention of the design world and also brought a sense of freshness to consumers.

Kelly Park 'Studio Kakao Friends' operated by Kakao Friends collaborates with creators from all over the world and in different fields. The first collaborator is Korean calligraphy artist Kelly Park. Apeach’s pink and cute character features are combined with Kelly Park’s strong and stylish calligraphy to create unique and fashionable products.

Snowpeak X LINE Friends

A collaboration between Japanese camping brand Snowpeak and LINE Friends. Snowpeak is known for its fine craftsmanship in the camping equipment industry, as well as its excellent design quality and love of nature. It tries to apply the warm and friendly brand tone of LINE Friends to its products, and this application is excellent.

Rhodia The cute characters of LINE Friends are well used in Rhodia’s luxurious and artistic brand image.

Quartet In addition to all packaging of the coffee, Kakao Friends characters are also used in the bread, bringing fun and wit to the quartet brand.

Naixue For sale in Naixue store in Shenzhen, China.

Bang & Olufsen Brown’s iconic color and face were used in a restricted and minimal design to maintain Bang & Olufsen’s high-end brand image.

Xiaomi This version uses the story of Brown, who gained super strength and became "Super Brown" after meeting Xiaomi. Xiaomi and LINE Friends will continue to have more ways of cooperation.

**Doraemon/Minion X Clova Friends **

Clova Friends is an AI speaker produced by Naver, the parent company of LINE Friends brand. They designed a cute and friendly artificial intelligence speaker using two Line Friends characters, Brown and Sally. Many AI speakers tend to use cute characters because these characters can make people feel more friendly and emotionally connected to the device. Recently, they have collaborated with Doraemon and Minions to design some special editions, which have been very popular.

Kakao Friends X Battle Ground

A collaboration between Kakao Friends and the popular PC game Battle Ground provided by Kakao Games. Kakao Friends designed a Ryan doll that dresses like the character in the game, one of the few items that fans of the Battle Ground game will enjoy.

Kakao Friends , Clash Royale and Kakao Friends characters have been redesigned.

Sundaytoz X Disney (Disney pop)

Mobile games using Disney IP are being released one after another.

Sundaytoz has released a mobile casual puzzle game called "Disney Pop".

As a variety of characters are created, the character business becomes more and more competitive, so there are many attempts to differentiate characters from other brands. We summarized the most prominent cases of brand personas and listed the characteristics of persona-related businesses.

Recently, there have been many cases in which characters are designed to resemble celebrities, or idol stars participate in the development of new characters after coming up with concepts. Fans of celebrities will naturally become fans of these characters, and the character brand will be easily popular. Using stars in your branding strategy and giving characters stories can also help the brand become more interesting.

Recently, the character BT21, a collaboration between the world-famous idol group BTS and LINE Friends, has become very popular.

BT21

LINE Friends created a character brand based on sketches drawn by BTS members and used BTS’s global fan base to enhance the characters. Popularity. For more than a year, BTS members have been involved in all processes from the character's initial sketches and overall design to the character's personality and backstory. As these processes were exposed in the making of the film, BT21 received an explosive response from fans at home and abroad, even though it had not yet been released. As of January 2019, the number of BT21 fans on SNS has reached 16 million. Products collaborated with BT21 by fashion brands such as Converse and Antisocial Social Clubs were all sold out within 1-2 hours of release.

Roy6

Roy 6 character was created by LINE Friends and China’s new generation idol Wang Yuan***. Wang Yuan participated in the development of the character together with LINE Friends and launched it in China for the first time. Roy6's theme song "Will you" was so popular that it ranked first on China's major music charts upon its release.

Running Man

This is a 3D animation produced by LINE Friends using the popular variety show "Running Man". Each character is based on a real person from the show Designed for stars. Based on the popularity of the show, the animation is also popular around the world. In addition, they also made a mobile game using this 3D animated character.

Krunk

Krunk is a character created by YG Entertainment, a famous Korean star-making company. With the concept of a star singer, you can easily see it in YG-related music videos, events or advertisements. Various Krunk merchandise and characters used to promote YG stars are also popular.

Popular characters are often loved around the world, so many character brands try to promote their characters by opening offline stores or holding events overseas. We looked at several recent examples of successful globalization of brand roles.

Apeach Omotesando

Kakao Friends opened an Apeach-themed character brand store in Omotesando, Tokyo. Released in Japan, the Apeach characters, modified to fit Japan's unique sensibilities, are not the same as the original characters. In the Apeach theme store, people can experience the character brand through various desserts and large sculptures. Based on its popularity in Japan, Apeach was also selected as a protagonist for a Tokyo tour company.

Shanghai Kakao Friends Store

Kakao Friends recently opened a pop-up store in Shanghai, which is the beginning of their business in China. The concept of the pop-up was "First Journey to China" and they placed a giant character figure around it for people to take pictures of. China is one of the countries with huge business potential, so Kakao Friends also expects to achieve success in the Chinese market.

LINE Village Bangkok

LINE Friends opened a small theme park called "LINE Village" in Thailand last year. People can see life-size characters and enjoy 23 differently themed rooms when they visit the world's first indoor attraction. The LINE Friends store is not only a place to sell goods, but also a place for people to have fun and have new experiences. This year they are also preparing to open another theme park in Shanghai.

Early popular characters with repetitive images will make people feel aesthetic fatigue after a period of time. Some brand characters try to bring freshness to the public by changing their style or collaborating with other brands. A new version of the character was also developed that extended the character's story, giving the brand a new look.

Kakao Little Friends

Kakao Friends has designed a baby version of the character family "Kakao Little Friends", which are not much different from the original characters. The image is softer and warmer. This version is used in various Kakao Friends products, especially those related to children.

BT21 Universe

Various characters newly designed for BT21 convey the design concept of BT21’s friends and family. These different character versions are also loved by BTS fans.

By collecting character images, consumers can own their favorite characters in their most complete form. As the number of children-at-heart adults increases, the number of well-made characters is also growing rapidly. People like to collect many special editions. Following this trend, character brands are shaping their characters into toy images, allowing people to have more affection for them by owning them.

Bearbrick

Bearbrick is a collectible toy designed and produced by the Japanese company MediCom Toy. Through cooperation with famous brands and artists, they have designed various versions of bears whose shapes have distinctive features and have long been loved by collectors.

Molly

Molly is a character created by Hong Kong designer Kenny Wang. Through cooperation with various brands, Molly was made into a toy character. This grumpy, cute-looking girl has fans all over the world who are crazy about her limited editions.

Super Fiction

Super Fiction creates many high-quality images of their characters and also designs large-scale sculptures as works of art.

Avofriends

Avofriends is a character brand designed by a small Korean studio that is very popular in mainland China and Hong Kong recently. They partnered with Lpay, an electronic payment system in South Korea, which uses Avofriends for promotion.

Character offline exhibitions can allow people to have a deeper understanding of the character brand. Since people like to take photos in interesting places and share them on SNS, many character brands tend to use exhibitions to promote their characters and let people take photos with their favorite characters.

Bape XXV 25th Anniversary Exhibition

Street brand Bape opened a large-scale collaborative exhibition in Tokyo to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The character baby Milo customized by 10 artists and products in collaboration with various brands were put together in the exhibition.

I am Sally Exhibition

Global character brand LINE Friends launched an exhibition called "I am Sally" at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai.

This is LINE Friends’ first solo character exhibition, which opened on Sally’s birthday and was visited by more than 60,000 local fans and visitors over the weekend. The 4.6-meter-high Sally placed in the exhibition particularly attracted people's attention. Various Sally-themed exhibition booths and pop-up shops were also designed inside.

Momo Planet Art Exhibition

Momo Planet has opened an art exhibition in China with its newly designed graphic posters that convey a completely different brand than the original characters image.