Kaizen: Designing the brand

Defining the Brand, Identity and Strategy

The name

I decided on the name ‘Kaizen’. It is a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices.

I feel that this name reflects the original motivation behind the app;

‘To help people improve professional skills incrementally in a time efficient manner.’

Now that I had the name, I explored some visuals that related to Kaizen, Kanban, and Japanese philosophy.

Initial sketches

The Mark

During my research I found the Japanese characters for Kaizen. In Japanese it is broken down into ‘Kai’ meaning change and ‘Zen’ meaning good.

I then recreated these characters using Adobe Illustrator to see how I could incorporate them as part of the overall identity.

Minimal versions of the Japanese characters

I found that the character for ‘Zen’ was bold and eye catching. I decided this would work well as part of the identity as it memorable.

Bold ‘Zen’ character

I wanted to reflect the ideas behind Kaizen and Kanban (A similar Japanese manufacturing system that encompasses Kaizen)

Kanban system

Kanban utilises boxes to categorise tasks. To show this I made all of the text and iconography fit into a square.

For the text I started by creating letters that fit perfectly into a square.

I wanted to incorporate the bold ‘Zen’ character into the Kaizen text. To do this I took the bottom rectangle element and put it under Kaizen to create a square.

I then experimented with adding the ‘Kai’ character to the logo and creating a square/diamond logo.

I felt that this mark was weaker than my previous design. The extra character didn’t fit with the other two.

I decided to stick with the name with just one character as it was more aesthetically pleasing, easier for users in Western countries to understand and it better reflects the Kaizen/Kanban philosophy with the two clear blocks.

Finally I went with this design. It is clean, minimal and reflects the Kanban philosophy.

After conducting some user research I found that people liked this design. Some comments that stood out: ‘I like the simplicity’, ‘I like the symmetry’.

Colour

I began experimenting with various colours which could be used for the brand’s identity and app design.

After some experimentation and research I went with bright blue. Through my research I discovered that the colour blue is often associated with intelligence, trust and professionalism. It is also a dynamic colour — reflecting the dynamic, incremental growth aspect of the product.

I wanted the app icon to be as bold as the logo. Due to the constraints of the icon size I could incorporate both of the marks so I had to decide on one.

The text mark would be easier to understand, however I feel that the Japanese character is more iconic and eye catching.