Brand Case Study

Sidekick

Take a deeper look at what went into the Sidekick brand.

Since the initial branding in 2016, I’ve also been responsible for the photography, videography, and some product design for this Edmonton start up.

Branding

The Icon

The Sidekick Icon was created to represent the Sidekick brand in the simplest form. Using a combination of simple geomtery and modified lettering, the Sidekick Icon stands as a hollistic identity.

The inner elements are comprised of a stylized K rotated clockwise at 90º, and a thickness-matched chevron that echoes the symmetry and angles of the K’s arm and leg. The head and foot of the stem on the rotated K is also modified by introducing slight angles that encourage a better flow of the negative space within the encapsulated icon.

The Sidekick Icon itself is structured as an Impact Orange hexagon, a play on the brand’s first product, the Sidekick Curve. Although the product is called the Curve, the icon contrasts this with hard 60º angled corners, but the idea of utilizing the edge remains. The Impact Orange colour was formulated to represent the colour brought by using the Curve.

The Wordmark

The Sidekick logo was created to serve as a visual representation of the environment and experience that makes the Sidekick experience so valuable.

The logo itself is comprised of the custom stylized word Sidekick, delicately balanced with the Sidekick Icon.

The SIDEKICK element is set in the open-sourced font Lato Bold with modified I’s. The I’s were sliced at the top and bottom at 60º to reflect the angles in the Sidekick Icon’s hexagonal structure.

The logo is also displayed in the three brand colours, Side Blue, Kick Teal, and Impact Orange, showing off the fresh, active, and mobile nature of the new brand.

Product Photography

When shooting these products, there was an emphasis on showing the products as heroes. The products are typically floating in a dark background and lit with a single flash to create a sense of visual drama.

Athlete Photography

The challenge with shooting these high-performing athletes is that typically we are in poorly lit gyms with cold hard surfaces.

I used this to my advantage by continuing the dark and moody visual drama of the product photography and using a single light source inside the gyms. We often try to incorporate the surrounding equipment in the background to help create harsh shadows to add to the visual drama.

Product Development

Eclipse

Sidekick founder Hin Lai approached me with one simple criteria.

“We need a new product with a hole in it.”

So after some sketching and research, there was a product from competitor that had a thumbhole in it and four countered edges.

I developed the Eclipse to have a bit more versatility than the competitors product. While they have four countered edges (to the Eclipse’s three), I wanted to focus on the function. The eclipsed hole in the centre allowed for more flexibility in the way the user gripped the tool. Having this new type of grip (compared to Sidekick’s previous scrapers) meant the pressure applied by the user was more inline with the target area, versus an off-set pressure application.

Protector Cases

The need for protective cases came from two aspects. One of the tools is made from a delicate stone and prone to fractures, and the second is that some of these tools are an investment and people want to bring them to the gym with them.

When designing the cases, the goal was to create a product that was inline with the brand and provided excellent protection to the products.

In combining both brand and protection, I used an elongated hexagonal shape. This created three points on each side that would not only minimize the point of impact, but also absorb it.

While we were developing the protective cases, I was also in the midst of developing a gym bag. With that in mind, I incorporated a MOLLE strapping system to be able to integrate with the future product and strap any cloth or gel accessories until then.

Apex Trigger Point Texture

When introducing the line of Vibration Therapy devices, Sidekick wanted to differentiate their products from existing muscle vibration devices.

In keeping with the brand, I developed a hexagonal point system dubbed the Apex Trigger Point Texture. This continues to be a feature of Sidekick’s flagship Vibration Therapy Devices the Flux and Fuse.