[013]BRANDING · MOTION · COLLATERAL · DIGITAL[KEN SPACE — BRAND PROPOSAL]

KEN SPACE
a soft place to do hard things.

Branding. Motion. Collateral. Digital.

Ken is Vietnamese for cocoon. A student-accommodation brand for 16 to 24 year olds, starting in Sydney and planned for Saigon, Danang, Hanoi and Toronto. Moving out for study is the hardest year most young people have had so far. We built the brand around the one thing that year needs: somewhere quiet enough to change in. The whole identity is a single silk thread that spins a cocoon, multiplies, and becomes the logo.

01 · Idea
One Thread
A silk line that traces the cocoon and becomes the mark
02 · System
47 Pieces
From the room key to the subway billboard
03 · Cities
5 Cities
Sydney, Saigon, Danang, Hanoi, Toronto — one lockup each

The challenge

[01 / CHALLENGE]

Student housing sells itself the same way everywhere: a rooftop render, a gym, a games room, the word vibes. It is loud because the competition is loud. But the people moving in are not looking for a party. They are seventeen, a long way from home, carrying a course load and a part-time job. What they actually need from a building is calm, and nobody in the category was offering it.

The brief was a name and a world for a new operator opening its flagship in Sydney, built to travel to Vietnam and Canada without losing its voice.

The idea

[02 / STRATEGY]
[02a / THE COCOON]

A silkworm does not rush. It spins one thread, then another, until it has built something strong enough to change inside.

That became the promise: a soft place to do hard things. Ken Space is the quiet in the middle of a loud year. The line “Spin slow. Grow loud.” carries it into the residents’ own voice — calm at home, ambitious out there.

[02b / ONE THREAD]

The mark is not drawn. It is spun.

A single silk line traces a cocoon-shaped ring, then multiplies into sixty fine threads that become the symbol. Every photograph in the system sits inside the same cocoon window with its ring on top, so even a lift poster or a keycard reads as Ken before you see the name.

The Ken space wordmark on sage, shown as its construction: thin parallel threads tracing every letter.

Design system

[03 / DESIGN SYSTEM]

Five colours taken from raw silk and the places it is made: cream, mist, copper, mulberry leaf and ivory. One typeface, Neue Kaine, in three weights. Photography is graded to one warm, unhurried light, so a corridor in Sydney and a lounge in Hanoi look like the same home.

SILK CREAM · E1D6C7MIST BLUE · 7C8A91RAW COPPER · 8D492BMULBERRY LEAF · 8F9681IVORY THREAD · F0EFE6
Manifesto slide in copper: Ken is a soft place to do hard things, and Spin slow. Grow loud.
Tone of voice, Soft and still: a quiet bedroom in soft daylight.
The Ken Book, four spreads on mist blue: cover, cocoon, four threads, tone of voice.
The Ken Book, four more spreads: colour, typography, silk graphics and the brand out in the world.

Move-in to move-out

[03b / IN THE HAND]

Forty-seven pieces were designed for the first building. These are the ones residents touch first.

A copper presentation folder with a cocoon-shaped window, held open in two hands.
A resident carrying the cream welcome tote with the copper ring printed on it.
A copper RFID room keycard tucked into a back pocket.
The resident app on a phone in a sage corduroy pocket.
A copper event wristband on a resident’s wrist.
A lift poster asking for this week’s vibe check, with two residents walking past.
Room sign 402 on a dark corridor wall.
A cream mug and saucer in soft afternoon light.
Lounge coasters in copper, sage and cream on a timber table.
A framed kitchen poster leaning on the floor beside a lamp.
A staff business card held against a guitar amplifier.
The Ken Space website open on a laptop: Uni life, upgraded.
A copper pull-up banner at the foot of a campus stairwell: Ditch the 1-hour commute.

Credits

[04 / WHO MADE IT]
01NGUYEN (Andy) Van Anh HuyFounder and Design Director. The cocoon idea, the single-thread identity, motion and the brand book.Direction

BRAND PROPOSAL — KEN SPACE STUDENT LIVING. THE DECOR HUB.™ DESIGNED THE NAME STORY, IDENTITY, MOTION, BRAND BOOK AND COLLATERAL SYSTEM.

Keep looking

[05 / NEXT]
014IGMAAn institute that reads deep time in stone — identity and an award-style WebGL site.Next case ↗Start yoursTell us the commercial problem, not “we need a rebrand”. We reply within two business days.Contact