Responses by YARD NYC.

Background: Kizik is the leading innovator in hands-free footwear, shoes designed so you can step in and go. To coincide with a suite of product launches, the brand was set to launch a new platform aimed at transforming its functional benefit of “hands-free” into an emotional benefit rooted in its target consumer’s desire to move frictionlessly through life.

Design thinking: Inspired by the brand belief that “life is most interesting in motion,” we developed the slogan: “Motion is Magic.” Kizik’s collection of styles, considered design details and range of colors is made for all of life’s moments. Paired with its patented step-in technology, its shoes enable consumers to go, do, see and explore—to find the magic in motion. It’s an inspiring brand promise that captures the easy, unencumbered way our consumers move through life and experiences.

Challenges: Kizik was built on a performance brand model, and its incredible success has come from employing very specific, successful, performance-driven tactics. However, those tactics can differ from how you apply design and tonality when building a brand for overall awareness and affinity. It’s been incredibly important to ensure we’re bringing forward the elements that reflect the brand’s heritage and success while innovating to invite new consumers into the brand based on aspiration and brand connection.

Favorite details: All the elements that make up the brand world of Kizik are inspired by life in motion. We use blurred focus in still photography to imply motion. Coordinates that correspond to the names of each Kizik shoe, which are all named after different places and cities in the world, spark intrigue and wanderlust. We established “simplicity” as one of the core values of the brand and let it guide everything we do. Helping the consumer cut through the complexities of everyday life in every aspect of the brand, from the way our product innovation works down to every design decision we make.

Visual influences: In setting out to define and establish an ownable visual world for Kizik—against the context of today’s overcrowded market of active footwear, which is mostly grounded in slick, hyperstylized photography focused on showing performance and technology—we were inspired by the realness of life captured in documentary street photography. These are candid, authentic images that inspire a sense of travel and exploration. They’re a way to highlight the true benefits of Kizik’s hands-free technology and the idea of motion is magic—the beauty of motion and life itself. From influential photographers like Ernst Haas and Alex Webb to modern contemporaries like Sam Youkilis, we looked to draw from inspiration that captured the magical quality and power of motion in both big and small everyday moments. In collaboration with our director Esteban, we leaned into the deeply human warmth and eye for spontaneity that’s infused throughout his work.

Specific project demands: The step in is a crucial part of your introduction to Kizik. Every time a consumer experiences Kizik in person, there’s a distinct “aha” moment. We needed to find a way to emulate the feeling of the step in in our visual language, which was easier said than done. In moving image, it’s easy: you just show someone stepping into a shoe. But the other aspects of the brand needed to be filled with the same optimistic feeling of forward motion too.

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