Case Study
Composer Lab
Identity design for a multi-year arts support scheme. The scheme is a co-operative effort between The Contemporary Music Centre, the National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ lyric fm. The scheme mentors emerging composers under the guidance of the 3 organisation and an establised composer. The scheme ends with the first public performance of a work by each candidate.
Contemporary composition is a difficult concept for many people to comprehend. It's difficult for composers to understand! What was clear from the outset, and to anyone who follows contemporary composition, it is no longer represented by quavers and staves. For the identity it was necessary go back to a more fundamental examination of what music is, playing with notions of structure and rhythm, movement and change of sound in time.
The typographic mark came about from these explorations, with the vertical bars representing the regular metronomic strikes of keeping time.
Development
The first version was very different from what ultimately became the brand. Coming at the project from a different angle, this concept looked at the Lab being a place of freedom of expression and experimentation. A safe place. Custom type was devised which, although it had an underlying grid structure of squares and 45° angles, broke the rules of regular type. It felt free, and unconstrained.
The client ultimately felt that more was needed than type only, and the piece should have a softer edge, so a second iteration was developed.
Custom Lettering. Always.
It's important that the logo part of an identity programme should have custom lettering, rather than mere font choice. This protects the client from rights conflict issues with type foundries, but more importantly gives them ownership over something unique to them. It's a selling point, and a way to quickly establish a feeling and tone.
Crucially for a designer, it's more fun.
The letterforms in Composer appear like morse code blips on the regular vertical rules. The top and bottom terminals of each blip are rounded, to soften the attack and decay you might imagine each sound makes.
The logo reads like a trackhead or notes in a vsiual music composer such as a sequencer.
