Shaping a luxury apartment brand around the human experience
From a Building Construction Brand to an Experience Building Brand
A sustainable future depends on homes that can not only produce but store their own energy. By storing solar, homes can power themselves through the night, eliminate gas appliances and even feed back to the grid at times of peak demand.
Lunar Energy was founded in 2020 to help move the world towards all-electric homes.
Daylight has been Lunar’s design partner from the beginning.
Xi (pronounced as [Zai]) is a high-end apartment brand in South Korea with a twenty year pedigree. Xi was frustrated by "supplier-driven design." When the vision and execution of building-construction suppliers heavily shapes the apartment experience, it's much harder to stand out against competitors. Xi sought out Daylight to help them create a luxury apartment brand vision for the next twenty years that was human-centered rather than supplier-centered.
New Tool for the New Era: Experience Design System
Xi’s existing design system provided a visually unified look-and-feel for their premium apartments. This was applied to physical brand touch-points such as architecture, interior, landscaping, and products.
While this was successful, it needed to be updated and expanded to become a more holistic Experience Design System. To really give customers a coherent and comprehensive experience, it needed to cover both tangible and intangible brand touch-points such as online space, service and communications.
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
4 Principles in Premium Living Experience
Daylight approached this experience design system work through a human-centered lens.
To understand the ‘real’ lives of people and to get new inspiration for the premium communal living experience, Daylight spent meaningful time in apartment-dwellers’ homes, observing their lives, and engaging in candid, in-depth conversations.
Our empathy for these lived experiences along with the Xi brand, led to four key brand principles:
- Everyday Comfort : Putting people first and making every day's journey smooth and seamless so that every moment of the day can be comfortable.
- Timeless Flexibility : Responding actively/flexibly to changes in the lives of people and evolving more over time.
- Me-centered : Helping each person to focus on himself/herself and to live ‘my own life but better.’
- Better Together : Minimizing conflicts and maximizing benefits in living together.
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
Using a design language to shape the experience of Xi apartment dwellers.
Daylight used these principles to define an Experience Design Language that shape the overall experience of Xi apartment dwellers.
While design languages are usually defined as adjectives that directly illustrate specific shapes, in this project, we intentionally used verbs, anchoring on ‘Align’ and ‘Blend’
- ‘Align’ toward sophisticated simplicity
- ‘Blend’ into a seamless and gentle atmosphere
Daylight also created visual reference images to help stakeholders easily understand the concept of ‘Align and Blend’, and how they might apply to elements such as form, function, information, materials, colors, and lights.
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
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One inspired, human brand voice for the next 20 years
Xi views the new Experience Design System coming out of this project as the vision for the next twenty years. Driven by users’ needs rather than suppliers’ perspective, it will help Xi design with one inspired, human voice across all its brand touchpoints.
