Branding for content discovery platform Kitsu
A manga and an anime content discovery platform Kitsu. Emerging and providing a completely new experience for all fans of Japanese culture.
Kitsu is a social platform created for manga and anime fans, which resembles major functionalities from Goodreads. The main product's values connect with assisting users to share and track new anime/manga content. The primary goal of our top branding company was to develop a visual brand identity that directly presented the spirit of anime and manga. At the same time, the brand identity should stay professional for users to discover new information and top. More than that, their product is mainly targeted at a US audience who loves Japanese culture as a whole. So it was a task to get these two things bound together.
Firstly, just like with any other branding, we start with a deep understanding of the product. Our team has to be sure that both client and our teams are on the same page and understand each other perfectly. So, we began gathering product attributes and moodboards, which would work great to accomplish these goals. In Kitsu we concentrated on the following word attributes that reflect their mission: fox, comics, discovery, discussion, rating, and sketches.
Secondly, we explored tons of draft shapes by drawing low-poly sketches, as it significantly reduces the time and produces better results. During this stage, our team found that foxy shapes could be amazingly different: sharp, rounded, simple, detailed. And after a few tests, we came up with a shape that fit our requirements. Even though the shape had a certain visual dynamic, we weren't happy with the foxy head and tail and did another iteration to improve them. Our team has also put a lot of focus on Sans Serif font families. Since the Kitsu logo will apply on their marketing website, it had to look flawless and readable.
Lastly, our team has also reduced the level of detail to low-poly base objects and chose triangle and circle objects as base ones to construct the logo for achieving a friendly shape. This composition does match with foxy ears, nose, tail, etc.
