The part of the kory logo we held onto longest was a single letter. Not the k, the r or the y — the 'o' in the middle.
Copy tradition directly and you get a souvenir
At first the easy route was right there: drop in a Taegeuk, use dancheong colors, trace the line of a tiled roof.
But we already knew what happens to objects made that way. You buy them on the trip and they go into a drawer once you're home. They do symbolize Korea — they just don't belong in the room you live in now.
So we decided to translate tradition rather than copy it. Instead of moving a form across unchanged, find out why that form is beautiful and draw it again in a contemporary line.
A moon jar is not a perfect circle
A Joseon moon jar isn't thrown in one piece. It is too large to raise on the wheel at once, so the upper and lower halves are made separately and joined at the middle.
So most moon jars are slightly off. The two sides are not exactly symmetrical, and a faint ripple remains at the seam. And that misalignment is precisely what people point to when they call a moon jar beautiful.
A circle that looks generous because it isn't perfect. That was the feeling we wanted to bring across.
The Taegeuk is two curves locked together
There is no pushing in the S-curve of the Taegeuk. Two fields interlock without either encroaching on the other, and together they make one circle. It is closer to balance than to opposition.
A circle and an S. We laid the two curves over each other.
And this letter is what remained
Inside the slightly imperfect circle of the moon jar, we laid the S of the Taegeuk on its side. From a distance it is simply a lowercase o. It sits naturally among the other letters and never announces itself as Korean.
That was the intention. If a symbol only reads once explained, then it had better be good-looking before the explanation. Like the object first, learn the reason later.
Rather than announcing that you have been to Korea, we left a single curve that only those who know will notice.