Brand · Identity · 2019

Kookedo

A modular identity for an indie kids retail store — built from shapes a kid could draw. Circles, half-moons, triangles. The same kit becomes a logo, a tote, a sign, a million different things.

Kookedo — tote bag grid showing the modular brand pattern
Role
Lead designer
Team
Sole designer, Company stakeholder
Deliverables
Naming voice · logo · pattern system · packaging · merch · storefront direction
The brief

A kids brand that doesn't talk down to kids.

Kookedo was an independent retail store for kids 0–12 — competing with brands that mostly default to cartoon mascots, bubble fonts, and the same five childcare clichés. The brief was sharper: a brand that's playful without being patronizing, that a kid would want to wear and a parent would put on the shelf with intention.

01 — The mark

A logo made of basic shapes.

The wordmark is built from a half-circle, a full circle, a triangle, and a stub — geometry simple enough that a 5-year-old could redraw it on paper. That simplicity is the system: the same shapes that make the logo make everything else.

Kookedo — primary and secondary brand symbols
02 — The palette

Four colors that read at any size.

A purple anchor with three primaries — yellow, coral, mint — bright enough to compete on a shelf, calm enough to live in a kid's bedroom. Used in equal weight; no accent, no secondary.

Anchor
Deep purple
#5C2F89
Primary
Sun yellow
#F5D54F
Primary
Coral
#F18E8E
Primary
Soft mint
#9CD6E0
03 — Applications

Same shapes, six totes, infinite combinations.

The shape kit means every tote, sticker, and shelf-tag can be its own composition without ever leaving the system. Below — six totes from one alphabet of forms.

Six Kookedo tote bags — each a different composition of the same modular shapes
04 — Stationery

A corporate identity that still feels like a toy box.

Letterhead, business cards, envelopes — the pattern at small scale, restrained palette, the system reading equally well in a kid's hand or a wholesale buyer's email.

Kookedo stationery — business cards, letterhead, and envelopes on a desk
05 — Apparel

The shape kit, worn.

The same modular forms scaled up into wearable graphics on baby onesies — no characters, no licensed IP, no cliché. Just clean shape compositions a kid actually wants to wear.

Three baby onesies featuring Kookedo's modular shape compositions
06 — Out in the world

A brand that holds up at billboard scale.

The compositions scale from a business card to a side of a building without losing structure. Three placements: bus stop, subway platform, and a four-storey city wall.

Kookedo bus-stop poster — purple with bear and fox shape characters
Bus stop · Amsterdam
Kookedo subway billboard with shape characters
Subway · Girona
Kookedo building billboard with stroller illustration
Building wall · product feature
07 — The store

The brand as a place to walk into.

Two storefront concepts — one sculptural (the letters carved into concrete), one playful (the wordmark in primary colors on a black wall). Same identity, two completely different environmental moods.

Kookedo concept storefront — KEDO letters carved into a concrete wall
Kookedo concept storefront — colorful wordmark on a black wall with shape pattern

The shape kit was the brand — simple enough for a kid to remix, structured enough to stay a system. The work I'm proudest of usually starts with that kind of constraint.

— Manjia Zhao