It was a great year for LINE at this year's 2022 Red Dot Design Awards, as six LINE Creative projects were recognized in the brand communication category! Considered one of the three big international design awards, the Red Dot Design Awards is divided into three categories — product, brand communication, and concept — and are chosed based on the evaluation of design experts around the world.
LINE's winners this year were the Product Design Organization's Safety Check, LINE Design System, LINE Search, and LINE Official Account Profile, as well as the BX Design Organization's LINE Mobile Office and LINE Seed. Let's take a look at each of this year's winners!
1. Safety check
What is Safety Check?
The Safety Check feature for LINE Messenger is a communication tool that allows you to easily inform others of your safety or check on your friend's safety in the event of a disaster.
Design features
- Easy-to-recognize banner
The red banner makes it easier for users to be aware of disaster situations. This banner is not visible within LINE services during non-disaster situations, so users can intuitively recognize that an unusual event it happening. - Low data-consuming design
To minimize data loading in disaster situations, Safety Check was designed to be minimalist, with few factors like text, lines, or faces, and no images or fancy graphics or motion. - Easy-to-learn/recognize
Uses green and red colors symbolically and repeatedly to make it easier for users to recognize information about "Safe" and "Affected". - Message templates for different disaster situations
By providing preset message templates, users can easily enter messages even in difficult situations, like when injured during a disaster. - List of friends' safety statuses
By providing a list of friends who have registered their Safety Status, users can check on their friends' safety with just one scroll action. Users can intuitively see their friends' status by the 'Safe' and 'Affected' badges. If you have a friend who has newly registered Safety Status, they are highlighted on the list, so you can check them separately from the old ones.
Check out more about Safety Check >
2. LINE Design System
What is LINE Design System?
LINE Design System is an integrated guideline for components, interactions, and the user experience that make up LINE design. Available in nine languages, LINE leverages the LINE Design System to deliver LINE designs with the same values and principles to users around the world. The System consists of a design system for Messenger, the main service of LINE, and a design system for LINE's global family of services.
Design features
- Design System for LINE Messenger
Focuses on creating an integrated design language using LINE's design foundation and UI components. - Design System for LINE's Global Family of Services
LINE's global family of services have different business directions depending on their particular details, so they require a more flexible system. The goal is to provide guidelines to build a consistent user experience for LINE's family of 34 services around the world.
Check out more about LINE Design System >
3. LINE Search
What is LINE Search?
LINE Search provides the information users want based on rich data within LINE Messenger. It expands the special UX/UI in a wide range of forms connecting chat and search functions; from the convenience of basic portal search to voice search and in-chat search, and to the experience of sharing search results in chat rooms.
Design features
- Varied but consistent UI
Breaking away from the image of conventional search services, LINE Search implements UX/UI that combines familiar usability and aesthetic design. - Special UX/UI connecting chat to search
Users can quickly search, see clear results, and share with friends in a chat room, in one easy flow. - Smart notification with high-quality search results
Users can receive high-quality search results through messenger, such as the weather they check every morning, the latest information about their favorite singers, or the real-time status of COVID-19.
Check out more about LINE Search >
4. LINE Official Account Profile
What is LINE Official Account Profile?
In keeping with LINE's mission of "Closing the distance", LINE Official Account (LINE OA) Profile offers a service that closes the distance between business owners and users. In particular, over the last year and this year, we have completely transformed the Content Management System (CMS), changing it with a user-friendly and innovative UI/UX, to satisfy both business owners and the users who visit OA Profiles.
Design features
- Ability to create quick and easy profiles for business owners
A formerly complex profile creation process, which once could take months, was reduced to a week. At the same time, easy and intuitive profile features made its contents richer and visually stand out. - Providing information and benefits for users
Users now visit OA profile pages more often to get more information and enjoy a variety of benefits.
5. LINE Mobile Office
What is LINE Mobile Office?
LINE Mobile Office reflects LINE's work culture, transformed for the remote work style of the Covid pandemic era. Emphasizing the culture of LINE, the revamped office has improved aesthetics, usability, and convenience to provide a better working environment for employees.
Design features
- Reflected LINE's identity and improved the office to be optimized for LINE's unique work style
LINE Mobile Office is a project that focused on how to capture LINE's own essence in space. Looking into the overall atmosphere, the BX design team came up with a refreshing and clear image that matches LINE's Forest Green identity color. Inspired by Forest Green, we gave the conference rooms names related to nature. Based on our analysis of LINE's image and atmosphere, we tried to reflect LINE's familiarity and identity in the finishes, specifications, and even frames, and improved them considering usability, convenience, and aesthetics. - Created a new work environment by responding quickly to changing conditions
Due to the Covid pandemic that began in early 2020, LINE quickly changed to a remote-work environment, so the office needed to evolve accordingly. The number of fixed desks were reduced by 50%, with density also lowered to improve air quality and comfort. We also made the work environment better by solving many of the pain points expressed by the existing employees, such as adding separation between spaces and improving noise levels.
Check out more about LINE Mobile Office >
6. LINE Seed
What is LINE Seed?
With a name that implies "growth", LINE Seed is a geometric-based typeface inspired by LINE's convenient usability and friendly identity.
Design features
- The voice of LINE
As LINE provides services to users around the world, LINE Seed was produced in four scripts, starting with the English alphabet, and adding Korean, Japanese, and Thai, to deliver our message in a consistent voice. All of LINE Seed's typefaces have the same DNA, so even if users convert the language, it looks harmonized, as if that they had used a single font, because of a carefully calculated balance of volume and gravity. - Characteristics
The morphological simplicity of LINE Seed represents the universality and familiarity of LINE. In addition, the LINE wordmark's unique rounded corners and shape was reflected in all text, including letters, numbers, symbols, and icons, to deliver a consistent identity. - Functionality
Extra care was made in LINE Seed's use of ligurates (the combining of certain letter combinations, like fi, ff, fl, and fj), to ensure spacing was consistent and words are easy to read. In addition, LINE's various service icons are included in text, that can be used creatively and be visually entertaining.
Check out more about LINE Seed >
The LINE Creative winners will be annouced on the official site of the Red Dot Design Awards on October 28, 2022. We hope to share more good news about LINE Creative's growth and successes soon!
