Eight studio briefs, thirty-two concepts, one object: how Han River introduces itself by hand, in two languages, on two continents.
Our current cards are four single-sided alternates that hedge between markets. The fix is structural before it is aesthetic: one card, two committed faces — handed Korean-side-up in Seoul, English-side-up on Sand Hill. With that settled, we commissioned the same brief from eight imagined studios, each rooted in a city's design culture, to map the full space of what the card could say. The output is not thirty-two equal options; it is a handful of real candidates and a much sharper sense of what we are not.
Held constant across all thirty-two concepts. These are settled unless the partnership reopens them.
Five concepts worth a partnership conversation, in rough order of conviction. Everything else lives in the appendix.
Menlo Park sits at 37.45°N, Seoul at 37.55°N — the two offices are on the same parallel. One dashed latitude line, a dot at each office, the local city leading on each face. It is a verifiable geographic fact that happens to be our thesis. It also scales: an event series, a newsletter, an LP dinner, all named 37°N. Recommended execution: this idea, built with Jackson Square craft (engraved line, debossed dots) rather than London's rawness.
Hangul is the only writing system on earth with a named designer and a publication date — 1446, by royal commission. The card scatters the jamo of 한리버 at architectural scale: foreign founders see geometry; Korean founders read it instantly. The card literally performs our information-asymmetry thesis. The story ("we come from the culture that designed its own alphabet") is the strongest brand narrative in the whole exercise.
A literary serif wordmark, hairline rule, small-caps title — the register of firms that signal taste rather than scale. The Korea face sets the serif in hangul, which almost no Korean financial firm does. If we want one design that survives every room from KDB to a founder coffee, this is it. The conservative pick, chosen deliberately rather than by default.
Our bar mark recut inside a ring, the way a Japanese family crest compresses identity into a circle that lasts a century. It works at favicon size and at signage size — the current flag-style mark does neither. Even if no Tokyo card is printed, the crest is worth adopting: deck dividers, letterhead, the office door. Identical on both faces by design; a crest does not translate, it persists.
Portrait orientation quoting the K-pop photocard and the train ticket: vertical serif 한리버 on the Korea face, a SEL ⇄ SFO boarding pass on the US face. Wrong for an LP meeting, right for founders under 35 — which is one end of our barbell, so it isn't frivolous, it's targeted. A candidate for a second, situational card rather than the primary.
The combination we'd actually take to print: Quiet Serif (J) as the primary card, with the 37°N line (O) as its back-of-card motif and the Mon crest (G4) adopted as the system mark across deck, letterhead, and signage. Three studios, one coherent object — and the Photocard held in reserve for demo days and founder events.
Each city is a different theory of what a card is for. Full sheets below — every concept includes both faces, rationale, tradeoffs, and production notes.
| A | New York | the institution | Trust. The refined evolution of what we have. |
| B | Los Angeles | the culture | Memory. Warmth, gradients, the photocard. |
| C | San Francisco | the object | Taste. Material, deboss, the single bar. |
| D | London | the idea | Wit. 37°N and three other sayable concepts. |
| E | Hong Kong | the bilingual money city | Fluency. The hong, the chop, the interchange. |
| F | Paris | the manners | Ceremony. The original carte de visite, reclaimed. |
| G | Tokyo | the ritual | Respect. Designed for the fifteen-second meishi exchange. |
| H | Seoul | the home team | Authority. Korean material, worn lightly — 1446. |
Click a studio to expand its full sheet. Each opens with the studio's reading of the brief.
Continuity and trust. Evolves the existing cards; commits each face fully to its market.
Warmth and memory. Founder-facing, consumer-end-of-the-barbell energy; the photocard people keep.
Material and taste. Ex-Apple/IDEO restraint; the card as a machined product.
Concept and wit. Every card must have one idea you could say out loud in a pub.
150 years of presenting one firm in two languages with money as the subject.
The city that invented the calling card. A card is manners, made of paper.
Designed for the fifteen seconds when a meishi is received with two hands and read in silence.
Knows the rule before we say it: 한리버, never 한강. Uses Korean material lightly, because it's theirs.