Wonder in repetition: Oddity’s identity for skincare brand ZVYK celebrates the rhythm of good habits

The identity and packaging design for Korean skincare brand ZVYK, from Hong Kong-based creative studio Oddity, embraces the repetition of good habits, visually conveying as much through a vibrant array of manipulated geometric forms and expressive typography. “The brief was to create a vivid and colourful identity,” Creative Director & Founder Alice Mourou tells us, recalling, “at the very beginning the client said ‘I love your aesthetic, but all your projects feel too black and white, I want what you do but with A LOT of colour,’” culminating in the ecstatic visual world ZVYK inhabits.

Noting the inclusion of colour as a challenge for the studio, Oddity ended up creating a palette made up of 17 total colours, tying carefully selected pairings to the products they embellish. For example, the ‘Peace Serum’ comes in a blue bottle, “as there is nothing more peaceful than a blue sky,” while the ‘Tin Case’ “could have been any colour,” Mourou explains, “so it got violet” in order to not repeat colours from other products. “In the end, there is an interconnection between the product itself and how the whole family looks together,” she explains, noting that not every colour was chosen for a specific purpose, but rather to contribute to the system as a whole.

Turning to ZVYK’s typographic output, Oddity opted for an approach equally as vibrant as the colour palette, introducing Extraset’s ES Klarheit Kurrent. “At a glance for untrained eyes, it is still just a san serif,” Mourou notes, “but if you look a little closer you see a bold and rebellious character,” with acute, sharp cuts that compliment the identity’s striking geometry.

In the face of ZVYK’s unbridled, transformative usage of the typeface – from stretching and squeezing to mix and matching – Oddity’s process-led wordmark champions the make-break-repeat spirit of the brand. “We were looking for a typeface that would be sans serif,” she recalls, discussing the wordmark’s design, “yet we still wanted it to be connected with the general visual perception of the beauty/fashion industry,” turning to Playtype’s Melanzane as the solution. “It’s quite a unique typeface,” Mourou remarks, favouring its “adorable little serifs” and unconventional detailing. “In an unconventional way, this type conveys youthfulness while still maintaining a visual relation to the traditional perception of a beauty brand,” perfectly placing ZVYK in its ideal space. 

Beyond the typographic and chromatic systems at the brand’s foundation, Oddity also tackled ZVYK’s video and photographic output, aware of the visual-heavy landscape the beauty scene fosters. “As we already had quite an expressive typographic layout,” Mourou remarks, they turned towards a more straightforward, celebratory approach to photography. “The overarching concept was to show the beauty of differences,” she continues, led by the notion, ‘You are. Unique. One of a kind.’ “So with each model, we set a unique character,” Mourou details, such as a “soft and cosy after bath look” for ZVYK’s ‘Peace Serum’ or a more vivid styling for its patches. “In post-production, we didn’t retouch skin,” Mourou concludes, “leaving it the way it is, with little flaws and imperfection – beautiful as it is.”

Oddity

ZVYK