The group aespa is drawing global attention with a new direction.
On the 16th, SM Entertainment said aespa's single "Dirty Wokr (더티 워크)" won the Red Dot award in the product design institutional sector at the Red Dot Design Award, one of the world's three major design awards.
The Red Dot Design Award is a globally respected awards ceremony organized by the Design Center of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and, along with iF and IDEA, is considered one of the world's three major design awards. The main award is given to projects with excellent design quality after comprehensively evaluating a product's form, function and innovativeness.
aespa's single 'Dirty Work' (Dirty Case Ver.) is characterized by extending aespa's virtual, forward-looking brand identity into physical objects in the real world. Through visual language such as blackletter typeface and a cross-shaped graphic combined with the typeface, it materialized a self-determined attitude into a tangible structure, expressed independent solidarity and resolute will, achieving the honor of winning the main award.
In particular, the tin case, the album's core, was designed not just as a simple outer shell but as a 'physical artifact (Artifact)' that can be carried in everyday life. Through this, the package was completed as an object that embodies the beliefs of the aespa brand rather than a single-use consumer good.
aespa's design award win is not the first. Earlier, their first mini album 'Savage' (P.O.S. Ver.) also won the main award in the user experience (UX) – packaging UX institutional sector at the Germany iF Design Award 2022.
A representative said the group was drawing global attention by presenting a new direction "by offering records that go beyond albums that simply contain music, combining differentiated visual storytelling based on proprietary IP with SM Entertainment's design capabilities."
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