Chali

TATTOO SHOP OF WORDS

Clients: THINKWAYS

Industry: Creativity

Services: Market Research / Naming & Tagline / Brand Design / Experience Design / Design Extension / Web Development

Redefine brand experience through words

For Thinkways’ 10th anniversary, we transformed our branding methodology into a three-day experiential project: Cha-li Tattoo Studio. Inspired by the Taiwanese homonym for “tattoo,” the concept likened brand slogans to lifelong imprints. Participants combined curated words and templates to generate their own life mottos, experiencing how brand language is created. The project turned “branding” from an abstract idea into an engaging, memorable ritual.

2023 Red Dot Award - Brand & Communication

2023 Golden Pin Design Award

Brand Concept

Tattoo as metaphor, slogan as identity

If a brand were a person, its slogan would be the tattoo that tells its story. Named after the Taiwanese pronunciation of “tattoo,” Cha-li became an experiment in how words shape meaning. Visitors selected words, applied sentence structures, and crafted their own “brand slogan,” revealing how language builds differentiation and emotional value. The experience invited people to ask: If you were a brand, how would you define yourself?

Key Visual & Extended Design

Indigo as imprint, typography as impact

The visual identity draws from the indigo tone of tattoo transfer paper, symbolizing slogans etched like ink on skin. Typography is deconstructed and recomposed to express generation and internalization, balanced with stark black forms for tension. Risograph printing preserved ink texture and tactility across invitations, manuals, and posters, turning words into a sensory, ritualized brand experience.

Space Design

An immersive space surrounded by words

The office was transformed into a tattoo studio, complete with a chair and tools to set the tone. Large translucent fabric displayed deconstructed radicals, while a wall of hundreds of word cards formed an expansive “lexicon” for inspiration. Physical objects and symbolic elements merged to create an immersive path where words became a medium for dialogue between participants and the brand.

Website Design

Digital extension of a narrative experience

The single-page site used a scrolling storyline to mimic moving through life fragments. Each click revealed a new scene of the tattoo shop’s atmosphere. A digital “slogan generator” allowed users to craft their own phrases and view tattoo outputs, extending the experience to those unable to attend and reinforcing the project’s emotional resonance.

※Visit Website: https://brandbythink.com/Cha-li/

Brand Forward

Cha-li attracted over 150 participants, including our clients, partners, and curious visitors, each leaving with a meaningful personal imprint. Though the studio lasted only three days, it marked the start of Thinkways’ anniversary initiatives and a renewed inquiry into what a brand truly is. The project turned slogans from strategy into experience, proving that design can transcend visuals to become dialogue, participation, and self-definition, leaving a lasting imprint on people.

“A brand’s truth emerges not in what it says, but in how its words are lived and embodied.”

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