Seeing Where CONNECT Stands at the 2025 Seoul Design Festival
From November 12 to 16, 2025, the 2025 Seoul Design Festival took place at COEX 3F Halls C and D, bringing together hundreds of design brands and studios from Korea and abroad, along with a large number of creators and visitors.
WITIVE joined the festival under the CONNECT brand, meeting designers, creators, and brand stakeholders face to face to share the direction of business networking that goes beyond traditional business cards. It was a meaningful stage on which we could clearly see both where CONNECT is now and how it can take its next leap forward.
1. 2025 Seoul Design Festival: Design Flowing Through COEX
The 2025 Seoul Design Festival was built around the theme of “expanding design”, bringing together product, graphic, spatial, branding, and digital design in one place. From emerging designers to global brands, a wide range of participants presented their own perspectives on the value and direction of design and communicated directly with visitors.
Visitors did more than just walk through exhibitions. They listened to brand stories, spoke directly with creators, and explored new collaboration opportunities. In many moments, you could see relationships and networking forming naturally. This scene aligned perfectly with the philosophy embedded in CONNECT.
2. CONNECT Booth: 630 New Users in Five Days
Throughout the event, the CONNECT booth welcomed a wide range of visitors, including designers, freelancers, studio owners, and brand managers. Conversations often began with simple questions like “Is this a business card management service?” and naturally moved on to “Can our team use this together?” or “Can I use it with overseas partners as well?”
As a result, 630 new users signed up for CONNECT over the five days. This number carries more meaning than just growth in user count. It showed that professionals in design and creative fields strongly resonated with the idea of a profile-based networking platform, and it confirmed that CONNECT’s direction is aligned with the needs of the market.
We also had many meetings with studios, brands, and agencies on site, allowing us to discover new business partners and collaboration opportunities. For CONNECT, the festival was more than exposure; it was a chance to substantially expand our business network.
3. Why We Had to Postpone the CLOW Rebranding Launch
Originally, WITIVE planned to unveil CLOW, the global rebranding of CONNECT, for the first time at the Seoul Design Festival. With a refreshed brand identity, interface, and global user structure, CLOW was meant to be one of the main highlights of our participation.
However, during development and QA, a gap emerged between our initial schedule and the level of completeness we wanted. After careful consideration, we reached this conclusion:
“Rather than showing an unfinished version, it is better to be a little late and deliver a more complete experience.”
Because of that decision, we inevitably had to postpone the official launch of CLOW at the event. Many visitors told us they had expected to see CLOW live at the booth, and their reactions reminded us just how high the level of anticipation already was.
4. CLOW Coming in December: A More Complete Update
CLOW is not just a cosmetic rebrand with a new name and visual identity. It is a fundamental redesign of the service architecture.
– Infrastructure and stability designed for global users
– A multilingual interface and localization-ready structure
– Networking UX rebuilt around real human connections
– Profile and portfolio structures that creators and brands can share and build on together
CLOW is now in the final stages of development and verification, and we are aiming for an official release in December 2025. Because we were unable to show it at the festival, we are even more determined to present a polished and refined experience when we release it to users.
5. Where Design Thinking Meets Networking
One of the strongest impressions WITIVE took away from the Seoul Design Festival was this idea: “Design thinking ultimately starts from relationships.”
Conversations and connections between designers and clients, brands and consumers, creators and partners accumulate over time and become projects, services, and new experiences. CONNECT and CLOW aim to be a platform that structures the starting point and the process of those relationships.
Our goal is to design a flow where a single business card connection can evolve into a designer’s portfolio opportunity, a brand’s project, and eventually long-term collaboration. That is the role we hope CONNECT and CLOW will play in the design ecosystem.
6. A Step Forward Marked by Both Regret and Achievement
For WITIVE, the 2025 Seoul Design Festival was an event that brought many emotions at once.
– 630 new users in just five days
– New business partners and collaborators discovered
– Increased awareness of CONNECT within the creative industry
– And the regret of not being able to launch CLOW on site
Yet, above all of those emotions, one clear conviction remains:
“We are heading in the right direction.”
The questions, feedback, encouragement, and expectations we received on site all helped sharpen the direction of the network that CONNECT and CLOW will build. We believe that this single step at the Seoul Design Festival will become the starting point for an even bigger leap forward.
Author’s Note
