Sascha Lobe and David Chipperfield design the new Amorepacific headquarters

Amorepacific is one of the largest cosmetic companies in the world. Its new corporate headquarters in Seoul, South Korea is housed in a new building designed by David Chipperfield Architects while Pentagram partner Sascha Lobe and his team, have designed the architectural branding, environmental graphics and signage for the new headquarters.

The two creative powerhouses collaborated closely to deliver “a fully integrated solution that is harmonious with the building’s architecture and geographic surroundings." In line with Amorepacific’s brand and mission, the geometric building design is formed of uniform and symmetrical cuboids. In keeping with the architectural geometry, Sascha Lobe and his team “devise a matrix that uses Hangul-inspired pictograms to orientate the visitors” and considers the sites geographical location in the architectural design of the building.

Within the building, the English, Chinese and Korean language are widely used and as a result, the graphic designers were faced with the challenge of ensuring a delicate typographic balance across the three contrasting written forms. As a result, Sascha and his team decidedly designed a Hangul-inspired custom typeface to fulfil this criteria of readability. The letterforms, numerals and pictograms throughout the building are “pared-back, stencilled fonts”, constructed using the traditional Hangul method which fortifies “a balanced and consistent visual language throughout the space.”