Back when my daughters were young, we spent a lot of time in martial arts training. The local dojo, Canton Karate, was a community institution. The guy who had started the business was a great karate teacher and a very shrewd entrepreneur. Once he grew Canton Karate to dominate the regional market, he sold it, and got in touch with me for some identity work. He had developed a new business model for kickboxing-based fitness training, which had a very strong appeal to women.

My assignment was to develop a brand mark that could be used on a building exterior as either a plaque or heraldic sign, web site and business cards. It was very important to show an upper-body-related symbol that would appeal to fit, athletic women who wanted to grow upper body strength and faster reflexes.

He moved to the Denver, Colorado area, and used this ID to brand his independent boxing, kickboxing and martial arts-based fitness instruction to regional gyms. Last I heard, this program was bought out by a Denver gym franchise.