Design-led strategy helps South Korean Sindoh to grow its 3D printer business globally

Over the last ten years, tangerine has been engaged in a strategic design partnership with South Korean printer company Sindoh. The collaboration started with a design strategy programme to help the OEM manufacturer shift to become a consumer brand and enable them to enter new markets in the USA and Europe. Sindoh had pioneered new technology for which tangerine designed a new family of printers with their own distinctive visual identity.

In parallel, the design studio created a new corporate identity for Sindoh. No aspect of the brand development escaped the designers’ hands, a confident new logo based around a trimobious shape was created and a new design philosophy was communicated across all of Sindoh’s brand touchpoints: from the jackets worn by the personnel to the lorries delivering the goods, the signage outside their factories, their stationery, as well as a refresh of Sindoh’s website.

2018 and tangerine is pleased to unveil their latest collaboration with Sindoh; a showroom at the company’s Research & Development facility outside Seoul which has been developed to establish Sindoh’s growing presence in the emerging 3D printer market.

By 2022 the 3D printer market is estimated to grow to US$23billion, a fact driven by recent technological advancements that enable faster design, development, and launch of new products. As a leading printer manufacturer, Sindoh was quick to spot an opportunity in the 3D printing market for a brand that can simultaneously meet consumer needs for material, process, and application.

tangerine has designed all five of Sindoh’s 3D FDM printers and has influenced the design of their SLA printers. The team had realised, from user-testing, that existing options on the market were too difficult to use.

Young Choo, Head of tangerine’s Seoul studio and Project Director explains, “We realised that by streamlining the physical and digital processes we could create something that was more intuitive to use for the consumer.”

Importantly, in 2017 US software company Solidworks announced that Sindoh’s 3D printers would be integrated with SolidWorks 3D CAD compatibility, allowing users to design and then 3D print straight from the programme. A clear endorsement from this American software giant; the partnership will widen the accessibility and appeal of Sindoh’s 3D printing products globally.

As a relevant newcomer to the 3D printer market, Sindoh needed a way to communicate not only the benefit of their products but also their brand values. Through the close strategic partnership with tangerine, the studio’s designers had a clear understanding of Sindoh’s overall strategy and were, therefore, able to articulate this in the new showroom design. The exhibition highlights Sindoh’s capabilities in the market to potential customers and clearly defines Sindoh’s unique positioning.

The challenge for tangerine was creating a showroom that would appeal to a wide-ranging audience, from suppliers and VIPs to educational groups and 3D printing enthusiasts. A new entrant to the market, Sindoh’s customer base was only just emerging. The showroom also had to be flexible enough to grow and adapt in anticipation of Sindoh consolidating its core customer base while attracting new prospects.

The designers incorporated subtle expressions of the key facets of Sindoh’s identity throughout the space; from the screens that welcome visitors and introduces clear brand values, to the linear layout that guides visitors through the history and provenance of the company, which was founded in 1960.

By reflecting the 3D printing process of ideation, creation, play and experimentation and through the storytelling of the strengths of the company’s long history of innovative manufacturing; the showroom provides an enjoyable and memorable immersive experience that engages new and existing customers with the Sindoh brand.