Tyche's Visual Identity Fights Yips with a Healthy Face

Have you ever heard about the yips? No? Globally, more than 10 million golfers suffer from this athlete’s real nightmare. The term was popularized by a former golf champion Tommy Armour, and involves loss of fine motor skills. Many say yips can be beaten by self-encouragement and emotional control, but also by trusting the subconscious while focusing on each shot.

Meanwhile, a team of researchers based in in Austria worked on finding the best cure for the condition. Tyche Technologies, a biomechanics company, developed a product that aims to treat the yips. René Maehr, the start-up’s co-founder, teamed up with a team of scientists and created the Tyche T1 device, a portable gadget that helps yips patients recover sooner.

2017 could mean a new hope for golfers, and for the brand. The device already set a difference between Tyche and its competitors, but that is probably not enough to make receive a bigger attention among potential customers. This is where Bruch – Idee & Form stepped in. The Graz-based graphic design studio is responsible for shaping new visual identity of the start-up.

Combination of the scientists’ genius ideas and designers’ creative imagination produced a strong duo: a product that has the power to recall players to the golf field, nicely wrapped up in strong visual information that communicates the therapeutic value of the gadget.

Tyche corporate identity by Brunch Studio | Click to enlarge

Pieces of white space reserved for the creation process were accompanied by a balanced dose of green, which suggests the brand’s passion for this refined sport.

The corporate identity for the Wien-based company represents an open invitation to all golfing enthusiasts. It lures them to give up the misperceptions about the disability, and turn to Tyche’s futuristic solution, which additionally is backed up by computer science, engineering, kinesiology, robotics, and of course, golf research.

The adopted font keeps a line of simple characters, which point to the need for balance in the popular sport. As for the typography, the artists blended it perfectly with eye-catching images, creating bold visuals printed on business cards, labels, and on the cover of the operations manual.

The vibrant branding concept brings the start-up more closely to the public, reinforcing the connection between them by using an interactive counterpoint that expresses both funny stories and true facts regarding young golfers who suffer because of yips.

By integrating the golf ball into the brand’s personality, the players are challenged to explore the sport and healthcare side of Tyche, but also its rather amusing face.

The product, which may bring hope to affected golf players, is a portable device that determines whether an athlete has yips, measures the power of the involuntary muscle movements, and by repetition, the device recorders the information provided by the body.