When I transferred to the fashion department, I came to understand branding, and started dreaming about building my own brand. After much thought, the brand name I settled on was 'normalstory'.
The meaning is this. Your own daily life may feel terribly dull and unremarkable to yourself, but when others look at it, everyone is living a life that is special and worth admiring. I wanted to say that. In the end, each of us leads a daily life with its own meaning, specialness, and preciousness. I wanted a brand that could create, share, and carry not just clothes, but an attitude.
The root of this line of thinking (the naming) comes from:
1. (High school days) In a literature club activity, I encountered Kierkegaard. 'The Sickness unto Death'
: Everyone has moments when life feels meaningless and too heavy to bear. But how many people, in that moment, seriously ask questions about life itself? Most turn their eyes toward some other form of pleasure simply to forget the worry. Ordinary people just repeat that kind of life. Without even bringing up suicide, these days, habitual depression and insomnia are taken for granted — treated as nothing more serious than a common cold. Because there is hardly anyone who does not feel depressed, stressed, or lonely. It is as if "people become serious when they lose 5 talents, but do not worry in the slightest about losing themselves." Some books and some mentors say this is because of a lack of self-identity or self-development, and reduce it to a matter of individual willpower or determination. Is that really the case? Each person carries their own skin color, disposition, family background, and other stories, and has their own experiences and environment, and a clear limit on the range within which they can struggle.
2. (High school days) A senior who, even after debuting as a poet, did not live the life of a poet, but instead built a free nursery for children and lived a life of daily volunteering.
: There was a senior in my high school days. He was selected in the Spring Literary Contest early on, but he did not live the lofty life of a poet. He took the upper floor of a senior center in a poor neighborhood (where children could not afford kindergarten) and ran a children's library there. Of course, it was possible only because of his sister-in-law's consideration and trust, on top of the senior's resolve. The senior said three memorable things to me. (1) There is no absolute right or wrong in the world. People simply stand in different positions, with different levels of desperation. For instance, if two men are both 35 years old and one is a judge and the other is a pimp trading women, no third party can say, based on the current state of things, whose life is better or worse. (2) I find my own shortcomings and the meaning of life in children's diaries. (3) When I said I wanted to live a life like his, he told me this: When you compare your own daily life to someone else's, you usually end up admiring it. Even the humble life or the wealthy life that shows up in music videos or dramas, once it becomes the repeated daily routine of my own life, inevitably becomes boring or numb. At that point, I thought about this: Most people admire or envy some aspect of someone else's life. And in order to become like them, they consume, study, go to school, go to work, get married, have children, raise them, send them off, help them become independent, themselves grow ill little by little, and that is how they die off. In the end, even my own daily life is a life of admiration and envy, a special life for someone else. And yet we keep living the same unavoidable lives. What can I do for them, and for myself?
3. (University days) An insight from double-majoring in Western painting: 'the popularization of art'
: From the Renaissance through Art Nouveau, art pursued beauty, making use of stable proportions and various painting techniques to leave behind a brilliant history and body of work. But with the appearance of Andy Warhol, Basquiat, and Keith Haring, and then moving on to Marcel Duchamp, art added one rather different, special element. It is the element of '(human, fundamental) thought and philosophy'. Even if you cannot paint well, even if you do not use a brush, even if you do not use paint, even if you draw like a comic strip, or edit someone else's work, or just put an ordinary object on display and slap a nice name on it — you can live the life of an international artist.
I came to see that this is not limited to art alone. The most representative example is photography. With the appearance of disposable cameras, Polaroids, toy cameras, and DSLRs, the photography skills of the unemployed guy next door are now not far off from those of any professional.
I wanted to turn these kinds of thoughts into value through the medium of clothing. I believed that if I did, I could tell a story in the true sense, and that would be genuine branding.
And to concretize this brand, I began to set a direction for my life.
Even though I had transferred in my second year, I was able to finish most of my fashion major by my third year, earlier than expected. So I thought about a double major. I debated whether management would be better going forward, or international trade, and ended up choosing fine arts (Western painting). My thinking was that studying can be done later, but creativity has to be built up as much as possible while you are young. While taking Western painting classes, I also took sculpture major classes and graphic design classes. As for management, I did not study it from a desk but gained field experience by taking the time to work directly. During vacations, I worked at the Dongdaemun wholesale market, and during semesters, I ran an online shopping mall.
Even after transferring and double-majoring, by the second semester of my third year, I could complete most of my courses. So starting from the vacation before my fourth year, I began setting a direction for getting a job. First, I am not a fit model. That means, by conventional methods (processes), it is hard to launch a brand. If you do not meet the physical requirements, it is hard to even get hired as a designer at a national brand. So I needed an approach that was not the usual one, but one optimized for me. I planned out job changes and work periods, treating each role as part of an owner-manager training path, so that I could launch a brand after graduation.
1) Fashion (product planning -> production -> distribution -> store operation -> customer management -> PR / marketing -> branding)
2) Space (individual roasting cafe -> Pascucci barista -> interior work (woodwork, drawings, interior handling))
Laying out the specific steps:
First, from the middle of the first semester of my fourth year, I submitted a leave of absence for work, and began working as a fabric and design intern at Aioli — one of the more trendy national brands at the time (Egoist, Magenna Bridge, Plastic Island). Here, I started thinking about the pre-research and analysis that go into product planning. Fashion selects colors and fabrics three years in advance. For this work, research labs around the world conduct deep customer studies and analyses. While researching the trends, they are also creating the trends and shaping the customer's criteria for choice. The whole process of product planning that happens here overlaps in many ways with what recent UX and service design talk about.
At a newly launched brand, I took on sales and sales MD responsibilities. Through this work, I experienced the usual behavioral patterns of departing customers, how store managers and sales staff operate, and how sales are tracked and managed. Through conversations with them, I could seriously think about the real-world issues faced by store owners and operators, and their feelings about the head office and the franchise, as well as ideas for improvements and direction. I could grasp the real-world issues in B2B and B2C that the books talk about. During this period, I also obtained the Distribution Management qualification.
Then I went back into the marketing team at Aioli. Here I started thinking about the role that comes after the product. The main work was spreading the brand image through magazine ads and events. The insight I got here is that marketing — if we only improve the PR methods — could build a genuine brand image through publicity that does not cost much. (Of course, my opinion was not accepted there.)
While working in the marketing team, I learned interior work for free at a furniture shop in Hongdae. The startup capital had to come from converting my jeonse deposit on my studio at the time into a wolse (monthly rent) arrangement. It was 25 million won. I set aside 3 million won for emergencies. So I started planning the startup budget at 20 million won. Deposit for the store: about 15 million. Interior: 4 million. Fixtures: 1 million. Product/merchandise composition: 1 million. Store size: about 15 pyeong. Monthly rent: around 1 million. Was it possible?
But the issue does not stop there. Before launching a brand, I faced a very real and fundamental question. If I launched a brand... who would actually buy my clothes? Who should I design for and sell to? No, would it sell if I produced it? At what price should I sell? Should I make them dirt cheap? Or should I make them extremely expensive?
At that time, the overall atmosphere in the fashion market was strange. The entry of global SPA brands (Li & Fung's Zara and Mango, H&M, etc.) into Korea had been confirmed. Giordano, Basic House, and even Eland — everyone was on emergency footing. In the middle of all this, I wanted to make my own brand? On top of that, I had not graduated from some famous overseas fashion school like the new-wave designers, nor was my family wealthy enough to afford fancy product presentations and packaging.
There are too many cheap clothes in the world, and too many expensive (good) clothes, too.
(This, I think, is a very important proposition in the UX and service design being talked about today.) In the middle of this dilemma, I happened to read a research article from the Samsung Design Research Institute. There I got a truly enormous? insight. The article was about the VIP strategy of luxury brands. At luxury stores like Prada and Chanel, for their customers they place a restaurant or cafe on the top floor or ground floor, offering not just sight and scent, but taste — providing sensory satisfaction and comfort — so that customers build a certain perception of the brand and are given a rational reason (basis or justification) for their purchase. That is the form the service takes.
It is not the "VIP service" talked about by famous marketers, nor just a service for the five senses, nor merely a way of providing justification and reassurance for the customer's judgment. It was about steering the customer's judgment itself. In a sense, it is like a nudge, or closer to sleight of hand. If you look at expensive domestic brands, every one of them shouts "European style" or "American style." Some models are half-naked. Some models are tall and built. Some models are in highly dynamic poses. Each brand covers the various channels with that kind of imagery. If you go in somewhere, they give you nearly finished products like fancy sunglasses or card wallets as freebies, or reusable shopping bags. Some brands give out unique packaging. Some stores lure customers in with very unique or flashy displays. At some point, branding became not about the product itself, but about the product's wrapping, the store interior, the dynamic or creative display. How far can such a brand go? And is that really branding?
The insight I got here is about the concept of space. The attitude of the brand manager or director toward the space. And the emotion that the space abstractly (unconsciously) evokes. And empathy.
The direction of industrial research, by normalstory, I think flows like this:
1. Efficient production (supply < demand) -> 2. Efficient sales (supply > demand) -> 3. Diverse (complex, durable) functionality -> 4. Refined (colorful or detailed or simple) design -> 5. Packaging (instead of selling candy by the jar, wrapping it individually) -> 6. Product display (VMD) -> 7. Price-breaking strategies -> 8. SPA (fast-food-style product planning) -> ? (9. What comes next?...)
I think it is "space." Not for displaying products! But for empathy! The role of the creative director is to decide what to set as that touch point for empathy. That is how the brand's concept and direction gets set. It is not about making clothes first and then dressing them up in something that looks plausible (by applying whatever theories go under the name of "branding"). Rather, first a "thought and attitude as the foundation" shapes a space, and within that space, products are made that can resonate with the customers who want to share it.
I also think this overlaps quite a lot with what UX and service design in IT have been insisting on lately. And it is not just a fashion issue. I think all industries follow the same direction and pattern of evolution(?). You can see it just by looking at the attitudes and outcomes of each of the companies making smartphones.
Some companies build devices on the basis of an interface, while some companies develop devices on the basis of function and performance. Some companies plan products for easy use, while others build smart products and then train users into them. Some companies design spaces (stores) where participants can act on their own, while others spend aggressively to recruit as many participants as possible. Etc. In the end, the difference between these two kinds of companies seems to come down to whether they are based on some stubborn? fastidious? almost preachy? kind of thinking, or on realistic sales and efficiency.
As I said before in the direction of industrial research by normalstory... the latter kind of company is focused on only 1, 2, 3, and 4.
The former is planning products or services with priorities in the order 9 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3.
Then what kind of form could such a space take? Here, I started thinking about the cafe.
Where do people spend most of their time? Bus, subway, home, company, streets.. Hmm. Then what kind of space can I use as a business item? The options were not that many. The "cafe." When you want to connect with someone offline, what kind of space do you use? In front of the subway entrance? Under some bridge? In front of some bus stop? In front of some school? Most consumers with strong consumer tendencies were spending most of their time at cafes. As a place of waiting for a meeting, as a place for turning personal thoughts about the world (complaints) into conversation, or as a quiet personal space to read a book, the cafe was holding all sorts of different consumers. And through their tendencies and consumption patterns, cafes were providing a lot of insight. (On weekends, I go to cafes to do market research. In two or three hours, I can pick up honest opinions not only about fashion trends, but also about how people think about and consume various apps.)
That is how I decided to take the space in the form of a cafe. And I began learning cafe-related work little by little. At first, I worked in the PR office during the week and used the weekends to learn roasting and cafe operations at a roasting cafe. Once I had a certain grasp of the cafe concept, I started building cafe experience more seriously. I began working as a barista at Pascucci, an SPC Group brand. While working as a barista, in between shifts I walked around the Gangnam area, meeting most of the real estate agents there, and started doing market research. For about six months, I looked at income levels, preferences, age groups, and foot traffic by area.
In the late autumn of my 27th year, I opened "the generic cafe normalstory" in a small shopping arcade behind the Eunma Apartments in Daechi-dong. The Eunma Apartments are a hot topic in the Daechi-dong area, but the actual income level is significantly lower than that of neighbors like Seongkyeong and Samsung, and most residents are tenants. Because of that, I thought relative deprivation pushed their purchasing and consumption desires toward a level above their actual income. I thought this most closely resembled the consumption behavior of the average consumer.
One distinctive thing was that I did not make a sign, so unless someone accidentally walked into that arcade, no one could tell the cafe existed. Then how would I let people know about the store and make money? My alternative was this. I would put a story inside the cafe. And the key was not to tell my own story but the stories of those around me.
(Through an outside Cyworld club) I recruited individual artists from various fields and offered them space. (Even the cookies of a high school boy whose dream was to be a chef!) When things sold, I took a certain commission while letting new and flea-market artists be active there. And I let them think of that space as their own store — I let them put my store's address and contact number on their business cards.
And from some point on (my store was around 15 pyeong in size.. and a gallery? So, going beyond improving the interior of just my store, I started working on decorating the shopping arcade itself. I cleaned up the old electrical wiring and cobwebs, and repainted the peeling paint, using the passageways of the old arcade as part of the gallery space.) I set up and ran a small gallery space where university students and others related to art or photography could exhibit and sell their work.
All I did was provide the space and throw them projects (making a book, a webzine, a Garosu-gil flea market) through which they could imprint themselves in the general consumer's mind. On weekends, we held wine parties, or provided space where salaryman bands could gather for practice. Flea-market artists started gathering people on their own to promote their work.
All of this, through the production activities of third parties, beyond normalstory's own BM, naturally promoted the store and helped the store's products be consumed. In this space, the customer is not simply a target for one-way consumption, but plays the role of raising, consuming, and improving the store's value on their own. And through the empathy gained in that process, positive purchasing behavior happens.
These days, elementary schoolers listen to JAZZ. Women in their 50s also do Cyworld, and use KakaoTalk and Facebook. Each of them is already living with serious worries about life. They are not just "kids" or "middle-aged uncles." Kids cannot enjoy the relaxed environment that adults of an earlier generation had in their childhood, and adults have neither the space nor the people to soothe their weary days. For that reason, normalstory's target audience is not divided by age, gender, or education level. It is distinguished only by tastes and preferences. On weekends, targets drawn from those criteria gather together and enjoy parties. Middle school girls, a top-ranked high schooler, a high schooler who spent a year studying for the college entrance exam again, English teachers (Korean/foreign), professors, unemployed people, couples about to get married, a housewife who once worked as a design director but is now being treated for depression, and so on — they all gather together and share the same space while listening to music.
Looking back now, it is very similar to the App Store. And there are many parts that resemble service design as well...
It was from exactly that point that I started releasing my own products. I judged that a market had formed and that consumers were moving in a voluntary and organic way. The result was satisfying.
I sold my products at prices equal to or higher than those sold in department stores, and the reaction was good. Indeed, word travels fast in that neighborhood. What was most satisfying of all: my products were being chosen over the products at the airport duty-free shop and the brands at department stores. That was because they were clearly not cheaper than those, and certainly not higher-quality, or friendlier, or more stylish than those.
...(abridged)
The difference between a small trade and a business is whether it runs even when the owner is away. Even if a brand image is positive or negative, once it crosses a certain threshold, it ends up being like a rice soup shop where the taste of the soup changes the moment the owner steps out.
by Charles
