Astro-Beat Collective: Identity

Having researched into the other existing identities of Collectives within predominately Leeds, it seemed as though one visual concept needs to be established and then applied in different ways across all social media and promotional material. I sat down with the collective and spoke about the different typeface options that they could use as the main title. It was decided that a sans-serif typeface suited the modern style of Jazz that they perform, but an element of boldness would be needed as the music is fairly loud and experimental. It also seemed relevant to use Futura as it is known as the first typeface on the moon, reflecting the space style of jazz that the Collective focuses on creating events for. 

Identity developments:

The development of the identity began with the layout if the Collectives name, seeing if that alone could work or if a visual element needed to be established. It seemed important to highlight the name Astro-Beat rather than Collective as this is the part that will be recognised by people.   

Experimentation with the Lyra constellation that was being used as part of the Morpher rebrand was trialled as part of the Collectives identity. This worked well, but it did not make sense to try and fit with the band Morpher because if the Collective was to be continued past this event then it would not continue to have the correct relevance. It was also confirmed that the hyphen is not needed as part of the name is the words are to be laid out in this way - only if it was in a horizontal line. 

To move away from the Lyra constellation but still representing the element of space that the Collective wanted; stars became the design focus for this stage of development. The decision to try out what the use of 4 stars would look like was because there are 4 people running the Collective. As the designs developed, it was very quickly established that it did not suit the style of events that are to be held by the Collective as it was a little 'cheesy' and not considered on trend. The feedback from the Collective was useful as it did confirm that they wanted one visual element as part of the logo, rather than just the name. This means that all developments from now need to focus on this element of the feedback. 

A vectorised planet was decided to be a good visual to base the identity of The Collective on as it is simple, fun but also distinctive in terms of applying it to the different promotional materials needed for the events that they will be hosting. Taking the original layouts of the name, I overlayed it on the light grey planet in the hope to create a contrast. The grey seemed a little washed out and of no relevance, so monotone was trialled.

The text looked just as though it had been placed on top of a planet rather than carefully designed to fit within the area. This was something that when talking to the Collective we decided could be developed better. I made the writing smaller and then change the planet to be a full black, allowing it to become a stand-alone visual for the Collective to use on different promotional materials and to help form a well-established identity. The final develoment of this stage shows the writning small within the top part of the planet and rather than developing this further it allowed me to decide that I wanted the typeface to be rotated to suit the planet and fill the gaps. 

The idea to have the writing contained as part of the planet was developed and worked well to tie it all together as an identity for The collective. The Collective decided that their title of 'presents the inter-galactic groove exchange' needed to be incorporated into the logo. I looked at the different ways in which this could work as the ring around the centre of the planet. The first development makes it fairly hard to read, leading to the second development where the end sections of the lines are kept and the writing in the centre across the middle of the planet. 

After speaking as a group, The Collective then realised that this would only work for this individual event that they were hosting and not generally as an identity. They asked me to remove the writing from across the middle of the planet and replace with a single simple line. This, in my opinion, looks much cleaner and more appropriate. The line was changed to a slightly thicker weight to fit with the typeface used on the planet. 

I have learnt that the best way to develop an idea is to keep talking to the clients throughout the design process as little problems kept occurring and this ensures that the direction I am choosing to take is the most appropriate.