Group Branding Project

Today we have started Studio Brief 2. The brief is to work as part of a creative team, to put together a pitch for the concept, branding, identity and promotional collateral for the Micro-genres of Music exhibition. When starting the brief it is important to think throughly research and think about the message we are trying to portray; what is unique about this exhibition? how can the content, location, exhibitors potentially inform your design treatment? who is the target audience and what do they need to know? wow will we go about engaging with them?

Important details to bear in mind throughout:
When? Tuesday 5th (evening) - Thursday 7th June
Where? Middle Floor, Wharf Chambers
Who? (the work of) L4 & L5 Graphics

When starting, we watched a video where Rory McGrath from OK-RM talks us through the studio’s creative approach and recent projects, in particular he goes into detail about the work that they did for Het Nieuwe Instituut’s Designing the Surface show.

Notes from the video;

• OK-RM work with a range of designers 
• They have always been a fan of dutch design legacy, take inspiration from this
• Every designer within a project has a responsibility
• One of the layers being a language system where fact meets fiction
• Their idea would be to create a publication, the publication would be given to everyone for free upon entry, the public get to read it as they walk round the site
• A question that appeared: what is the mood of fear and love? To answer this they first looked at and found objects, lots of RESEARCH
• The built a neon- not just any old neon, a huge neon. Think about scale
• Think about materials to use
• Find a problem to answer
• Don't over design
• Research and visit places that aren't actual art and design related- make your research wide and don't restrict yourself

As a group we have started to create mind maps and generate ideas for the exhibition branding. We started by coming up with ideas and words associated with micro-genre and music in general, we also did this by creating a stream of consciousness. This was really useful as that helped us to come up with possible themes/concepts for the exhibition- we narrowed down ideas that we all found interesting. I found this task fun and useful as all the of the group members came up with interesting ideas, it was a nice bonding task.

We came up with a range of really interesting themes that could be explored throughout the exhibition, however there were a few ideas in particular that stood out the most;

• Idea 1: Using the word 'micro' from 'micro-genre' literally. As in playing on the theme of miniature throughout the branding. Furthermore, we thought we could use the symbol 'µ' which means micro as a logo etc.
• Idea 2: The theme of a cassette comeback as things are always evolving and making comebacks through time, perhaps now it is time for cassettes to make a comeback. From this we came up with the idea of a funeral for cassettes; cassettes died down years ago so it could almost be like a cassette graveyard. We could play on the idea of a funeral through subtle details such as a dress code of black, or creating the invites in a similar way to funeral programs (figure 1). This is one of our favourite ideas as a group and may possibly develop this theme.
• Idea 3: Categorise the genres by decades by having them in different parts of the room; the idea of walking through time through music. The sections would be separated by the flag and each with their own colour and decorations specific to that era e.g. the 70s area would use burnt colours and objects such as disco balls.  However, I think this idea would become quite expensive and too complicated/wide.
• Idea 4: The idea that animals are categorised in a similar way to micro genres. This could link to fossils and have a history museum aesthetic for the designs. We researched the phrase used for this and found nomenclature (figure 2).
• Idea 5: The idea of symbols; similar to the ones we created in class, each symbol would represent each person's work and each genre. The branding would purely consist of type and symbols made on illustrator, a very minimal aesthetic. The exhibition catalog would use the symbols to make each person's work clear. This could possibly be turned into way-finding easily. To make the exhibition more fun, we decided ways of engagement could include a silent disco or light projections throughout.
• Idea 6: The idea of a cassette used to be swap. Linking to to idea 2 because something dead to one person was new life to someone else; swapping one of your old cassettes with another persons cassette, the new cassette would be completely new and intriguing to you. Ben told us about an old 70s TV show called Swap Shop (figures 3-6. As a group we really liked the nostalgic aesthetic, which would also resonate with older designers. The 70s aesthetic also links to micro-genres as that is when they originated. 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5