Hyundai Card has launched the NAVER Hyundai Card Edition3, a co-branded credit card line developed in collaboration with CEKAI, a New York-Tokyo creative collective known for anamorphic 3D billboard work for Nike, BMW and Fendi. The release marks a deliberate departure from conventional card aesthetics, applying principles from large-format digital display design to a physical payment instrument.
The project began in mid-2025 when Hyundai Card and CEKAI started exploring how to reframe the card as a medium for motion rather than a static graphic surface. Rather than designing in two dimensions and adding a sense of depth afterwards, the teams developed the visual concept and its dynamic qualities simultaneously. Korean technology group NAVER, whose brand assets anchor the card range, provided overarching design direction throughout.
The three plates
After more than 100 design drafts, the collaboration produced three card variants. Plus is positioned around the benefits of NAVER Plus Membership. Neo uses colour gradients and geometric graphics to project what the release describes as futuristic energy. Logo Metal, the premium variant, uses motion graphic techniques to make the NAVER logo appear to shift depending on the viewing angle.
Hyundai Card’s Design Lab handled the translation from screen concept to manufactured product. Laser processing was used to render fine particle effects on the metal plate, while specialist films were applied to the two plastic cards to amplify the graphic movement. The manufacturing process required close co-ordination between the creative and technical teams to preserve the motion illusion at the scale and material constraints of a payment card.
Kota Iguchi, CEKAI’s creative director and motion designer, said: “Credit cards exist as physical plates, but we can easily imagine a future where they evolve into digital displays or take on entirely different forms. This project was incredibly exciting because of those diverse possibilities.”
Market and strategic context
The announcement is primarily a product design story rather than a financial or regulatory event, but it sits within a broader pattern worth noting. Card issuers in competitive consumer markets have invested heavily in physical card differentiation as a brand and retention tool since the mid-2010s. Metal cards, in particular, have become a signalling device across premium and super-premium segments globally, used by issuers ranging from American Express to a growing number of neobanks seeking to project credibility through tangible product design.
For Hyundai Card specifically, design is a stated strategic pillar rather than a marketing afterthought. The company holds the sole South Korean issuer partnership for Apple Pay, is the exclusive issuer of American Express Centurion card designs in the market, and in October 2024 signed a contract to license its proprietary AI platform, UNIVERSE, to Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company in Japan. That licensing deal represented a notable shift: a card issuer exporting technology rather than solely operating a domestic portfolio.
The NAVER co-brand is itself a strategically significant relationship. NAVER is South Korea’s dominant search and commerce platform, and the Edition3 card connects Hyundai Card’s issuing capabilities to one of the country’s largest loyalty and membership ecosystems. Whether the design investment translates into measurable acquisition or spend lift is not addressed in the release; the commercial metrics behind co-branded card programmes of this type are rarely disclosed at launch.
The broader question for the industry is how long physical card design remains a meaningful differentiator as contactless and digital wallet payments reduce how often cardholders physically handle or display their card. For now, issuers show little sign of retreating from premium materials and elaborate finishes, suggesting the card-as-object continues to carry brand weight even as its functional role in the payment flow diminishes.
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