Monosus' design assistance service "KUROKO" has launched!

Hello. This is Onogi from the design department.
The Monosus Design Department is responsible for the design phase that occurs within the company. From small things like a single banner to large things, from the planning stage to being involved as an art director, this department is involved in a wide range of design-related work.

In fact, we are the design department.
Up until now, we have never offered anything resembling a service.

There's no particular reason, but I thought that being able to handle a wide variety of designs was "a given to a designer," so I was worried that if I offered something resembling a service, I would end up being a one-sided designer.

However, with improvements in web technology and the trend toward responsive design, the workload for designers is increasing, and it increasingly feels like the industry as a whole is finding it difficult to devote time to essential art direction and core design.

So we are here to lend a hand as art directors! Or rather, can we help with the page design required for sub-pages and responsive design? That is how Monosus's design assistance service KUROKO was born.

First, I would like to explain the background to the launch of KUROKO.

Background to starting KUROKO

Monosus is a company that specializes in building large-scale websites, starting with planning and design. Recently, with the evolution of web technology, the production flow that was clearly divided as design → design → coding has changed, and there is an increase in overlapping of areas, such as designing while designing, and project control is becoming more complex.

In addition, when you put together a team and schedule with many members, there are bound to be gaps in resources, or conversely, you can end up overcrowded and too busy. Since there are few resources that designers can use to make decisions alone, it was frustrating that we couldn't flexibly respond to projects that were kindly brought to us.

Isn't it possible for designers to be a little more agile on their own?
Furthermore, what are the benefits for agencies and production companies around the world?

That was "mass production of lower-level pages."

You may think that mass production of sub-pages is simple work, but in reality it is not that simple. (Of course, there are some parts that are just work.) We have often thought that if we could properly create the concept and core design, we could outsource the rest of the mass production. However, we did not do so because we had difficulty finding a production company that would only take on sub-pages, and to be honest, we were worried about the quality, including communication.

So, knowing how difficult it would be, we decided to start a mass production service.

Designers at agencies and production companies can focus on art direction, and we have a lot to learn from them. We thought that this would create a mutually beneficial relationship, and that's why we started KUROKO.

KUROKO's three aims

When considering the services that KUROKO will provide, we came up with three pillars that reflect what we would like to achieve if we were to outsource the design.

1. Maintain the tone and manner of the design

This may seem obvious, but when we take on the mass production of lower-level pages, we think it is most important to take over the tone and manner of the design. It may not be possible to have an art director and designer who have been together for five years, but we will communicate closely and try to communicate with each other in order to get closer to that kind of relationship.

First of all, we will start by firmly taking over the obvious things.

2. Organize design rules for the future

As we do regularly at Monosus, we will properly organize icons and title designs that are frequently used on sub-pages into components. The accuracy of this work will greatly increase the speed at which we mass-produce sub-pages and prevent tone fluctuations. The extent to which we work on this will depend on the volume of the site, so we plan to communicate with you and create it in an appropriate form.

3. Design the UI from the user's perspective

The wireframes and designs will be created by the customer, and KUROKO will assist with the design phase. However, as the design process progresses, ideas for the user interface (UI) often come up, such as "Would this kind of flow be good?" or "This layout would be better for visibility." In such cases, we will also make UI suggestions. We think it would be best if we could pick up on things that the customer did not notice during the design stage and propose the optimal UI from the user's perspective.

We also offer other options, such as creating drawings and illustrations, and documenting design guidelines, but we would like to work with you while focusing on these three pillars first.

The meaning behind the name KUROKO

The meaning of KUROKO is exactly as it sounds: a black-clad figure. They are the ones who stand in the back in kabuki and other performances, dressed in black. They assist the actors, operate the stage equipment, and provide various other support from behind the scenes. The service we are currently providing, KUROKO, is the same, and will support the main designers of agencies and production companies from behind the scenes, helping with the page design production for mass production.

It took many twists and turns to arrive at the name "KUROKO."

There were other ideas such as "mono-designing" and "Design B to Z", but when we thought about "supporting from behind the scenes" and "a catchy name that customers can easily call", we decided that KUROKO was the best! From there, we almost decided on the name "KUROKO DESIGN", but we were concerned that if we ended the name with the word "DESIGN", it would seem that all of Monosus' design work is KUROKO (meaning a service that only mass produces lower-level pages).

KUROKO is certainly an important service, but we wanted to maintain the strength of what we originally did, which was to "design from the top layer, including art direction," so we decided to keep the service name KUROKO and add a subtitle to make the official name " Monosus' design help service KUROKO ."

Not only the service name, but also the subtitle was decided through trial and error, taking into consideration ease of understanding and balance.

KUROKO logo

The logo mark was designed by Kawarazaki from the design department.
As with the naming, there was a lot of trial and error, but the first consideration was that it was "behind the scenes for the customer," and so the direction was not too emphatic, and a simple, monochrome design was born.

Some of the drafts leading up to the final logo

In order to make it easier for people to contact us, we narrowed it down to a catchy design with a strong character impression, and created several proposals for the typeface shape, gradually improving the precision.

In particular, the character logo based on the letter "K" for KUROKO was discussed by everyone in the design department, and we made fine adjustments to the position and shape of the eyes, and whether or not there was a mouth, until we got to the very limit where it would look both like a character and a logo.

I hope that our customers will continue to love our products for a long time to come.

Please take good care of KUROKO.

In fact, this service was a decision that required quite a bit of courage for the design department.

If you are a designer, you want to start from art direction and concept making. However, if you only pursue that, it will be difficult for designers to interact with each other, and your way of thinking will be fixed in the small community of Monosus' design department. Last year, I learned a lot from art directors and designers from other companies through projects, and I was inspired by them. I sincerely hope that such relationships will be born through this service.

KUROKO has just taken its first step. Although we still have a long way to go, we would like to utilize the know-how that our design department has accumulated over the past 10 years of focusing solely on design to create a service that agencies and production companies can use with ease and confidence!

For the time being, we will not be launching a website or anything like that, but Monosus' sales staff will be introducing KUROKO and brushing it up. We look forward to the day when we can provide a better service and introduce it properly.

We hope you enjoy Monosus' design help service KUROKO!