FUJIMI
Project Duration June 2024 – ONGOING
Studio Services: Branding | Package Design | Website Design | Content Marketing Design | Copywriting
Project Information
Background
“FUJIMI” is a start-up martial arts gear brand, creating the highest quality, fight-ready training gear and apparel for experienced martial artists and competitive fighters. While their flagship products are mainly gear and equipment for competitive fighters, they boast a wide catalog of products for traditional East Asian and Southeast Asian martial arts.
The Challenge
FUJIMI needed a completely new brand strategy and identity system that would help them stand their ground in a highly saturated market, especially against well-known, heavy-hitter competitors. They needed a way to stand out and communicate the premium quality of their products while also promoting a more positive message of the “martial” way.
They also needed a fully-responsive e-commerce experience that would help increase their brand awareness, conversion rates, and ultimately sales revenue. With this new website, they also needed a way streamline their unique gym and dojo partnership enrollment program.
Our Solution
We worked with FUJIMI to create an emboldened brand strategy—along with a dynamically heavy-hitting visual identity system—that ignites courage and invokes strength, with clear visual roots in the traditional culture. With the design & development of the e-commerce website built on Shopify, we also provided additional design on select apparel and products.
Brand Strategy
During our Discovery Phase, we focused in on their focused-yet wide audience of martial artists. For their primary focus, they have the competitive martial artists—those who’d started fighting in local amateur circuits at a young age and aspire to go pro. For their secondary focus, they have the traditional practitioners—some who’ve competed before—but have since gone on to either focus on traditional martial arts styles and/or open up gyms or martial arts schools of their own.
Between both audiences, they’ve tried many brands of training equipment and fighting gear throughout the years. What they need is a brand that not only promises long-lasting and durable gear, but one that stands for the “martial” values and code they uphold for themselves, while enhancing every aspect of their martial arts journey—competitive or not.
What was interesting to us was the name “FUJIMI” (不死身) meaning “immortal” in Japanese. Whether looking at competitive fighters or other famous athletes throughout the years, one word stands out: Legacy. They do what they do because they’re passionate about it, they want to be known for it, and ultimately remembered for it.
We identified their brand attributes as Powerful, Spirited, and Uplifting. We needed the brand to convey the quality of its products, as well as what the products do for the audience: act as an extension of their unique fighting spirit. This would allow the brand to stand at the intersection of martial arts heritage and modern competitive excellence.
Brand Identity
To design an identity for a brand like FUJIMI, we knew we needed to make something truly memorable. We needed to communicate the intensity, focus, and power of the martial arts "spirit."
After closing out Discovery, moodboards and stylescapes were generated to determine the appropriate visual direction. We found inspiration in Japanese ukiyo-e prints and modern graphic design, utilizing interesting grid layouts and warm, intense colors. A glimpse at competitors showed us a heavy reliance on traditional red + black palettes, so we felt motivated to change it up.
Having an eagle as the brand mascot was meaningful on a couple of levels. As a bird of prey with an intensely focused glare, Japanese golden eagles are also symbolic of nature’s ever-lasting power. With its square, symmetrical composition, the brand’s mascot evokes the same focused glare as its fighters stepping into the ring.
To design an identity for a brand like FUJIMI, we knew we needed to make something truly memorable. We needed to communicate the intensity, focus, and power of the martial arts "spirit."
Interactive
For any e-commerce website, the buyer's experience has to be delightful and efficient to maximize conversions and instill brand loyalty. With an audience that has clear goals and needs, FUJIMI needed the site to dynamic and memorable, while still intuitive for them to get what they need.
With this in mind, we worked with FUJIMI on creating a unique shopping experience built on Shopify. Art direction and UX was crucial in making this successful, with bold lifestyle videos and photography that reflected the intense training and lifestyle of competitive martial artists. Additionally, we crafted pages and flows for their "Fighting Spirit Starter Pack" and their "Gym & Dojo Partnerships" programs—the latter allowing FUJIMI to collaborate with gyms and martial arts schools to supply and install brand-new equipment.
