Korean Culture and Information Service announced on Wednesday its new corporate identity that will be used in 24 Korean Cultural Centers worldwide.

“Led by K-pop, the demand for Korean culture has been rising around the world. The number of Korean Cultural Centers increased from 12 to 24 last year as well. We figured now is the moment to unify the CI to enhance public awareness of the centers,“ said Seo Kang-soo, director at KOCIS. 

The new CI is composed of three strokes in three colors. The blue dot symbolizes the sky, the red vertical line represents the human and the yellow horizontal line stands for the earth.

“We reinterpreted our traditional culture to express our past, present and future altogether. It provides many materials for our officers to tell stories about it ― it looks like a face winking or the Korean word ‘Ah,’” explained Seo.

KOCIS ran a CI design contest from March to June. However, the final selection was not among the 444 entries submitted by the public.

“We conducted the contest to see what kind of young ideas are there. We made the final CI after collecting opinions from foreigners in Korea, people from all levels of the society, and sending the draft to Korean Cultural Centers to check the reaction in different countries,” said Seo.

The new CI will fully replace current logos used in Korean Cultural Centers by the end of September.

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldcorp.com)