My Canva journey began in early 2021 as a creative lead in the International Templates team, with the mission of creating 3000+ bespoke templates that are truly local to South Korea.
The Truly Local campaign fits within Canva’s larger global vision of making every user experience feel culturally relevant, local and engaging, regardless of where they are or what language they speak.
I’ve been thrilled to be a part of the initiative to build a team, research the trends, study my own culture, and publish over 3500 free templates for South Korean users. These templates are divided into three key major categories: Truly Local Celebration, Truly Local Events, and Truly Local Culture.
Enjoy some of the rollout videos that the Canva team, contractors, and I have worked together on over the last couple of years. We are proud to share all of our hard work.
Korean weddings have a unique set of rituals and customs. Marriage in South Korea is the union of two families, rather two individuals. Weddings honour traditions that are still practised today, yet most weddings are brief and efficient. With the growing popularity of DIY weddings and small-scale weddings in mind, our union campaign focuses on creating templates that are simple, elegant, and modern to appeal to newlywed Millennials.
Birthdays are undoubtedly the most celebrated occasions, especially those significant milestones such as 100days (백일), 1st(돌), 10th, 20th, 60th(환갑), 70th(칠순), and so on. We designed a broad range of templates, including birthday invites, social media templates, and video messages, which users may personalise with their own photographs and messages.
Korea has had the world’s lowest birth rate since 2019, so the government has introduced a birthing subsidy and incentives since January 2020 to encourage births. That makes celebrating the birth of a child and new parents even more precious, and we wanted our templates to be sincere, heartfelt, and story driven to maximise user engagement. Personalised birth diaries, congratulations cards, photo collages, and YouTube videos for tips and vlogs were created for this campaign.
Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity are among the religions that have an impact on Korean funeral customs. Koreans perform certain funeral rituals over the course of three days.
Nowadays, Koreans are interested in having a funeral while they are still living. Funerals for their pets are also very popular, with over 800,000 monthly searches. Our intention with the death templates was to honour the passing of loved ones with meaningful copies and the ability to personalise.
When it comes to careers, Korea has a distinctly high pressure and competitive culture. So school admittance, graduation, career advancement, promotions, and retirements are all well-deserved occasions to celebrate. Our goal for this campaign was to be humorous, relatable with local nuances, through positive, encouraging messaging and fun visuals.
The food and drink campaign was specifically catered to small businesses, restaurant owners, cafes and bars. We kept the language and visual elements as authentic as possible with attention grabbing, conversion focus visuals and useful features like opening hours, online orders, contactless pickup and meal kit subscriptions.
As a lover of Korean films and television, as well as a formal art student at Sunhwa Art School, I am well-versed in the South Korean art and film scene. Because of Korea’s unique history and culture, our art carries an internalized sense of deep emotions as a result of the country’s lengthy history of invasion and oppression. Through films, dramas, paintings, and media arts, you may experience unique visuals blended with emotions, which is what makes Korean art and filmmaking so unique.
In this batch, we focused on designing templates that are artistic, contemporary and conversation driven for users who are independent film makers, art students, graduates, theaters, exhibitors and galleries.
Since Kpop has become a huge global phenomenon, the industry has broadened its exposure to include fan culture, independent artists, and a wide range of genres. We wanted to cater our Canva templates particularly towards millennials, gen-z and global users beyond the Korean market who adore Korean music culture.
K-Beauty and fashion have not only broken down barriers throughout Asia, but have also broken down barriers to mainstream western media for public consumption. The adoption of creative entertainment and media by those abroad is what makes KBeauty so popular – people are actually learning Korean to consume more since they can’t get enough. In this campaign, we designed bespoke Canva templates for both company and personal use, ranging from new product, sale promotions, to self-care tips and styling.
Many of us South Koreans have been reminded during the pandemic of the stunning natural scenery that exists across the country. So in this campaign, I made sure to capture not just the stunning geographical landscapes but also friends, partners and the company you travel with in this set. (especially with the fuzzy ones ?).
When I was working on this campaign in the midst of the pandemic, many gyms and fitness classes were under stress due to social distancing rules. Despite the limitations, Koreans were looking for ways to stay fit, lose weight, and be active in order to maintain their health. New trends in at-home training, golf, and tennis have evolved, while celebrity fitness youtubers have created new phenomena.
So, for this campaign, we designed templates with a great balance of commercial, educational, and motivational content – on doctypes such as social media, Facebook events, logos, and YouTube thumbnails.
South Korean New Year (구정) adheres to the lunar calendar, as do many other Asian countries. However, the aesthetic, customs, and traditions differ greatly from those of Chinese New Year. The new ‘Sun’ (새해) represents the new day, and we celebrate our new years with our families, filled with the hope of prosperity.
Valentine’s day is absolutely huge in South Korea and it is one of the biggest commercial events. Valentine’s Day in South Korea has a very different level of expectation than in the West. Firstly, only women gift presents to men on the 14 February. While it may seem unfairly one-sided, 1 month later the men usually return the gesture by giving gifts to women to show affection on the 14 March – White Day.
In this campaign I’ve had so much fun working with K-pop, Manhwa (Korean comic) and Gradient trends.
Korea has distinct seasons, and the nation is filled with outdoor events such as cherry blossom festivals, Autumn culinary festivals, and sightseeing. It is also a great commercial season, as it coincides with spring cleaning, wardrobe changes, interior refreshes, and so on. This campaign provides templates for both commercial and personal use, celebrating the new season with new hope and personal aspirations.
May is considered the “Month for Family” in South Korea. It consists of Parent’s Day (8 May), Children’s Day (5 May), and Teacher’s Day (15 May). This month in theme with gratitude is signified by the Carnation flower, which features in decorations, gifts and imagery, all representative of the month of May.
Commonly known as “Korean Thanksgiving”, Chuseok is 1 of 2 major Korean holidays (the other being Lunar New Year). Literal translation of Chuseok is “Autumn Evening” which means mid-autumn harvest festival, and the holiday lasts for 3 days of national holidays. The spirit of Chuseok focuses on celebrating the bountiful harvest, and strives for the next year to be better than the last.
Chuseok is also based on the time of year when the Moon is closest to the Earth, making it the largest Moon in the night sky that anyone will see all year long. The Moon has become a symbol of the holiday, and even foods such as SongPyeon rice cakes are modeled off the shape of the moon during the holiday. Celebrations that take place in the evening of Chuseok will be under the light of the Full Moon at night. Whether it is moon gazing together with family during celebrations, or traditional folk dances.
The South Korean Summer is quite hot and humid. Every summer, over 85% of Koreans who are not working gather in vacation destinations. During this period, the country is consumed with the holidays. Summer school vacation is often from late July to early August, when many employers provide employees with a week of paid time off to spend with their families.
We developed 90 templates for businesses who can simply create promotional material during the busiest summer holiday season with a breeze of ease.
In South Korea, there are three important national holidays designated by the government. First, March 1st Movement Day commemorates the Korean independence movement, which was held by the public on March 1, 1919 to show resistance against the Japanese occupation of Korea. Second, Constitution Day or Jeheonjeol is observed on July 17th, the day that the South Korean constitution was proclaimed in 1948. Third, National Liberation Day (Gwangbokjeol), celebrated annually on August 15th, is to commemorate Victory over Japan Day at the end of World War II.
