SFU Kendo
An ongoing visual identity and communication-design role for SFU's student-led kendo club — a new mark and wordmark, applied across posters, apparel, and social media.
- Contribution
- Visual identity, logo/mark, promotional graphics, posters, social assets, and apparel design.
- Production
- Physical apparel and print materials produced by Team Litzen.
Context
As a student-led sports club rooted in Japanese tradition, SFU Kendo lacked a cohesive and modern visual identity that reflected both its heritage and its affiliation with the university. The original logo was difficult to reproduce consistently across mediums and lacked symbolic depth. The goal was a mark that could work as a versatile emblem for posters, apparel, and digital promotions — resonating with both current members and prospective newcomers.
Exploration
The mark’s construction drew on two research threads: SFU’s own brand guidelines — its official red and white palette, used to keep the club visually consistent with other student organizations — and the visual conventions of martial-arts and samurai iconography, focusing on symmetry, clarity at small sizes, and recognizable kendo gear: the men (helmet), dō (chest armor), and shinai (bamboo swords). Club members also weighed in on the values they wanted the mark to represent: discipline, respect, and cultural authenticity.
Shape
The men’s silhouette went through several rounds of line construction before its proportions were narrowed toward the final mark.
Color and fill
Before the palette was settled, the same core shape was tested as an outline and as a solid fill, in red and in a neutral gray.
Lockup
Before / After
The new mark replaces that with a bold circular emblem: a frontal view of the men and dō, framed by two crossing shinai. The symmetrical layout evokes balance and formality — core to both kendo and samurai aesthetics — while red and white reinforce SFU’s own branding and Canadian identity. It’s built minimal enough to reproduce cleanly across uniforms, posters, and digital media.
Identity system
Applications
The identity has been implemented across event posters and digital banners, club social media, and custom apparel — worn at tournaments and intercollegiate events, and used for recruitment during SFU Clubs Days.
Posters
The club’s recruitment posters take different visual approaches — photographic, illustrated, and graphic — rather than a single fixed template.
Social
The same ink-illustration campaign carried onto Instagram, reformatted for a Story’s taller canvas rather than a printed page.
Apparel
The red-and-white colorway was the one produced.
In practice
Beyond the mark and its applications, the identity exists inside a real, ongoing club — training sessions, tournaments, and intercollegiate events.
My role on this project
- Designed the club’s visual identity — the mark, wordmark, and color system
- Created promotional graphics: posters, social assets, and digital banners
- Designed the apparel colorways, produced by Team Litzen
Reflection
Of everything in the system, the apparel feels like the clearest success to me — it’s what I most associate with stronger member pride and a more unified club image at tournaments and intercollegiate events. That’s the clearest evidence of what this project deepened for me: an appreciation for the intersection of cultural heritage and modern branding, and a stronger understanding of how to build a visual identity system that’s functional and versatile but still emotionally resonant for a community — while working inside SFU’s own institutional guidelines rather than around them. The process involved iterative design, peer feedback, and alignment with brand consistency — skills I continue to apply in design work across other organizations.