Identity

Analysis

Get an in-depth report of your brand/story identity in context of current competitors. Visualize market trends to see where your story, brand, and/or product fits.

Overview

Need a pair of design goggles? Kiyviz can lend you some.

An identity report provides a rapid insight into how your brand story looks, sounds, and feels in context of your current competitors. Kiyviz will research, rank, and analyze your competitors, then communicate that research in a visual, laymen-friendly format. Less jargon, more facts. 

Leverage Kiyviz’s design expertise to arm yourself with information that will help you make informed design decisions instead of a slog of trial-by-error.

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Identity Report Package

An identity report package is a comprehensive review of your story’s identity and includes:

  • 2 x Calls: Virtual learning and debrief discussions
  • Custom Analysis: Competitor research and ranking
  • 1 x Infographic: Competitor Branding Matrix
  • 1 x Memo: Analysis of design trends within your specific niche. Recommendations for differentiation.

When commissioning an Identity Report, our work will kick-off with the learning call, then I will work offline to analyze and produce documentation, lastly, we will walkthrough the analysis on the debrief call and field any remaining questions.

Calls

An identity report package entails two (2) calls where we share information about your story.

Learning Call

The first learning call is primarily for Kiyviz to learn more about your story or brand. This learning call will be used to guide subsequent offline research and analysis.

Discussion Agenda:

  1. Brief overview of your project
  2. Description of your niche, including place of doing business (regional? Local? Online?)
  3. Review of current graphic system (if applicable)
  4. Detailed project explanation
  5. Key ideas of your story (required information for viewers)
  6. Secondary ideas of your story (optional information for viewers)
  7. Q&A

Debrief Call

The last debrief call is where Kiyviz will communicate its findings to you and walk through the identity report documentation. We will field and answer your questions and ensure that you understand all of our analysis so that you are left with actionable insights, not just a pile of industry jargon for you to decipher later.

Discussion Agenda:

  1. Brief overview of key findings
  2. Walkthrough of niche’s design trends: discuss details from memo using infographic as visual aid.
  3. Walkthrough of design opportunities: discuss opportunities for tasteful differentiation, using the infographic as visual aid.
  4. Q&A

Analysis

Identity reports focus on creating a clear view of the visual landscape within a particular niche.

This holistic look at the graphic identities (symbology, colors, typography) and tone of different competitors within a given niche will reveal tropes and norms. These trends are then interpreted visually in an infographic and in-writing in a memo to create a clear record.

This analysis can be used to evaluate where your current (or planned) projects sit within your niche. If you’re not a designer, this analysis will help you see like one.

Symbology

Symbology refers to the use of symbols, in many cases a logo, to communicate an idea. Logos are used as a standardized visual representation of a brand. Over time, the repeated use of a logo has two distinct compounding effects on the viewer:

  • Recall: Repeated exposure to a symbol, whether it be a brand, icon, or signage makes it easier for viewers to recall over time. Examples of ubiquitous symbols include arrows or three-color stoplights. 
  • Familiarity Bias: Repeated exposure to a concept or image (in this case, a symbol) generates familiarity bias in the viewer overtime.

Colors

Color refers to the holistic use of hue, brightness, and saturation in visuals. Often, a graphic system will maintain a cohesive selection of colors (called a palette) to create a consistent look for a brand/story. Careful selection of color is necessary to balance legibility and expressiveness:

  • Legibility: Color requires contrast (difference between two values) to be perceptible to people. Small variations in colors are difficult for people to perceive, particularly if they have less-than-perfect vision (which represents a very large swath of viewers). The smaller an object, the more contrast is needed to make it legible. For example, small objects such as icons use a high-contrast color to maximize legibility.
  • Expressiveness: Color is one of the primary ways tone and emotion are communicated visually. Many cultures strongly associate concepts or emotions with particular colors; these color associations are often used (or subverted) to drive viewer engagement.

Typography 

Typography refers to the form of glyphs (letters, characters, numbers, and other markings) used in a typeface, also known as a font in digital contexts. Typography, like color, can be used to communicate tone and emotion. Further, a combination of different typography can be used to help create a graphic hierarchy that can guide a viewer through content (for example, the headings on this web page)

  • Legibility vs Expressiveness: Typography uses visual contrast and familiarity to create legible typefaces. Generally speaking, the more experimental a letter form, the harder it is to read. As such, experimental typefaces are generally used for large high-impact text such as headings or call to actions. Conversely, predictable typography mixed with a high-contrast color combination (such as black on white) improves legibility in all contexts, but becomes necessary at small sizes.
  • Typographic Hierarchy: Most textual communications use a graphic hierarchy to help organize and separate information on a page. Some of the most common applications are using large text for a title or small text for a caption or footnote. Proper use of a typographic hierarchy makes content easier and more pleasant to read.

Documentation

Identity reports are delivered in a clear, concise, and beautifully laid out manner. The memo and infographic provide easy-to-read, painless-to-reference information that is intended to be looked at often, not just stuck in a drawer.

Competitor Infographics are delivered in small and large print formats so that information can be conveniently kept on-hand or mounted on a wall for consistent reference.

Competitor Identity Infographic

A Competitor identity infographic is the visual portion of the Identity Report. It takes the top ten competitors within a given niche (based on organic Google search results) and maps them based on their visual complexity and aesthetics.

This infographic makes visual trends clear-as-day in an easy to understand format. It is exported the following formats:

  • Small-format Print: Letter size (or similar) layout that can be easily printed on most printers.
  • Large-format Print: Poster size layout that can be hung on a wall to serve as a functional reference within your office or workspace.

Identity Memo

An identity memo is the written portion of the Identity Report. It contains the following sections:

  • Key Takeaways: Brief overview of analysis
  • Trends: Design breakdown of trends in symbology, color, and typography within your niche.
  • Design Opportunities: Design ideas and recommendations for tasteful differentiation within your niche. Recommendations can be used to guide future identity development.