We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Siran Liu about their original and creative Brand Identity design work. Siran Liu is an award-winning communication designer, that makes our world a better place with their original brand identity works.
Siran Liu ("SL") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Acooroo Brand Identity. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
SL : Interesting characters and storytelling are able to engage the viewers in a powerful way. This became the concept which inspired me to introduce the mascots and a story of them being companions to the children for their bike adventures. The client and I would love to see the spirit of the brand to live on in children’s heart even after they grow up. And loveable characters becomes an ideal way to carry this out.
SL : My main focus and goal are to create a brand identity for Acooroo that could connect with children by delivering information from the brand in an engaging way, and find a solution in a visual language that ties every aspect of their customer experience into a cohesive system.
SL : I think my background in both animation film and graphic design influence how I approach this project. I love the charm and expressiveness in animation characters and It has always been my passion to tell a good story. Branding, for me, is the way a brand tell its story to their customers. And I enjoy helping meaningful brands to come up with strategy and build an identity that empowers them to tell a good story. So this becomes an ideal project for me to integrate different things that I'm passionate about.
SL : I would say, Alexandar Girard and Patrick Hruby. Although the outcome and result of this work are certainly influenced by many resources and great designs I observed over years of being a creative professional. These two illustrators work probably has the most influence on Acooroo's visual language. They are both masters in utilizing simple and geometric shapes to construct rich and striking images.
SL : The design is made for Acooroo, a children sports brand focusing on balance bike riding, whose customers are children between 3-6, and their parents who are looking for fun, safe and healthy sports services for their kids. The client created some cutout boards for the mascots and other graphic elements for their events, and the children (as well as the parents) loves them. There were lots of children posing and took pictures with the mascots. The unique characters together with the vibrant and cohesive visual language created a strong identity for the brand.
SL : The client came up with the name 'Acooroo'. It came from a Chinese word 'Gu Lu', which indicates the movement of rotating.
SL : For the deliverable elements, I build them with adobe illustrators and photoshops. But for me, the sketch process happened on paper was more important. It is, of course, a very personal preference, because I feel that my mind and thought flows better when my hand moving across physical paper.
SL : The brand is based in China. To add some culture nuance into the design, we decided to use ‘the Four Divine Beasts’ in Chinese culture as the archetypes for the mascots, which are Tiger, Dragon, Turtle, and Finch. And pair each of them with one of the four balance bike riding skills: tiger for speeding up; dragon for curving; turtle for climbing; finch for sliding. This is a really playful idea that adds another layer to this identity design. When carrying out a design project, it is important to use logical thinking to ensure that we are on the right track of problem-solving. However, cases like Acooroo give us rooms in adding our own whimsical thoughts, which make the project feel alive and more human.
SL : The main challenge is to strike a balance between design simplicity and visual richness. The character, as well as other graphic elements, need to share a simple visual language that can be easily recognized and remembered by preschool children. Meanwhile, we are looking for a visual system that is flexible and dynamic enough to construct graphical elements in great variety to satisfy and support children's increasing curiosity to explore.
SL : First, because both I and the client love these characters and design so much that we would like to get more channels to share them with the public. This is also to get more publicity for the brand itself. Additionally, I'm hoping entering international design competition could be chances for me, as a designer, to get feedback from industry experts, as well as make connections and reach to potential clients in future.
SL : Looking back at the design process, the client initially came to me for the character design. But later on, I conducted a project and brand alignment session with the client which gained us some very useful insight into the customers and brand positioning strategy. These became key guidelines for the following steps in the design process. Such experience is a valuable lesson reminding me to always have a big picture in mind and keep everyone on the same page when carrying out a complex project like brand identity.
