1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Kitsu Brand Identity Design

Ramotion ✪

Guardar Enlace permanente

Meet your next favorite

anime or manga
Kitsu is a social platform similar to Goodreads, but for anime and manga fans.
The core product's values revolve heavily around helping users track, share, and
discover new content.

Playful but professional

Our primary goal was to create a visual brand identity that reflects the playful
spirit of anime and manga while staying professional. As our client, Josh, said:
"We take our mission of helping users discover new media seriously, but not

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 1/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

ourselves." Moreover, this product targets a US audience who loves Japanese

anime and manga and it was a tricky task to get these two aesthetics married.

Base shape
Based on the theory of Biederman's geons, a human recognizes complex
objects as a group of simple geometries. To make comparing competitor's logos
easier, we reduced the detail level to low-poly base shapes. We chose a triangle
and circle as base objects for the logo construction to achieve a friendly yet
expressive shape. This combination correlates well with foxy ears, nose, tail, etc.

Attributes and moodboards

We start each branding from a deep understanding of the product. We need to
be sure that we are on the same page with the client and understand each other
well. Gathering product attributes and moodboards works well for these goals.
We took this approach in the Kistu project too.

Fox
nine tails, ears, fire, orange, red, illusion, flight, invisibility, bend time and space,
cunning, magic, shapeshifting, magic ball, girl, mask.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 2/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Comics
book, comics page, halftone, superhero, character, page, paper, colorful, chi-
power

Discovery
magnifier, telescope, binoculars, flipping pages, bookmarks, traveler, backpack,
karemat, tent, globe, trunk, stars, compass, lighthouse, map, flashlight, library
catalog, archive.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 3/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Discussion
Chat bubble, comment, chat, question, answer, megaphone

Rating
Stars, heart, like, smile, graphic, thumbs up, pie chart

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 4/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Sketches
Next, we explored dozens of draft shapes by drawing low-poly sketches.
This stage allows spending less time yet getting better results. We found that
foxy shapes could be amazingly different: sharp, rounded, simple, detailed.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 5/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 6/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 7/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 8/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 9/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Selected options
After all these explorations, we came up with a shape that fits our requirements.
The shape had a certain visual dynamic yet looked solid. However, we weren't
happy with the foxy head and tail. So we did one more iteration to improve it.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 10/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Symbol construction
https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 11/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

You might notice that we like to use the 'Golden Ratio' term even if sometimes
it's not 100% true. The fact is the Golden Ratio builds on the Fibonacci's
sequence in which each of the rectangles are proportionally related. We used
our system of circles that works in the same way.

Typeface exploration
The Kitsu logo was created for the web. That means it should look great in
the navigation bar of the website and be clearly readable. As such, we focused
on Sans Serif font families.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 12/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 13/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Polishing the logo

This phase is quite important. Even if all these grids and measurements make
sense only for designers, this picky approach allows double-checking everything
to make sure that the final logo looks balanced. Sometimes, you don't have
another chance to fix the spacing or shape because the logo is already printed
on thousands of products (not in this exact case, but it's good to remember
though) and millions of people have seen it.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 14/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Branding book
https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 15/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

As we said earlier in our Wyre project, a branding language is a powerful

marketing weapon. However, the stronger the weapon is, the more important it is
to follow the rules for using it. So we are perfectionists when it comes to
spacings, grids, etc.

Proportion and clear space

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 16/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Stand alone symbol

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 17/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

Primary colors

Typography

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 18/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 19/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 20/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 21/27
1/4/22, 13:06 Kitsu Brand Identity Design on Behance

We're available for branding projects

Ramotion ✪
Seguir

https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546457/Kitsu-Brand-Identity-Design?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Ckitsu 22/27