HOW WE USED LOGOS AND

BRANDING TO COMBINE OUR MEDIA TEXTS

By Michael Scotney

DEFINITION OF LOGOS AND BRANDING

A logo is a small design or a symbol used by an organisation to identify its products/services, employee uniform, vehicles etc.

Branding is a marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that differentiates the product/service from its competitors.

EXAMPLES OF LOGOS AND BRANDING USED BY ARTISTS

The rock and metal genres are among the most prominent in utilising logos and branding. This is due to the fact that their fans (audience) are the most likely to buy a T-Shirt and other clothing and related merchandise and so creating a strong logo and brand would help expand these sales.

Examples include Guns n Roses and ACDC

ANALYSIS OF OUR LOGOOur logo is based off the logo of the band that is song is by, Demon Hunter. It depicts a stylised demon skull with a bullet hole through its forehead. They created this logo to show the depiction of good defeating evil because they are a Christian metal band and many of their lyrical themes revolve around this concept and their beliefs.

They use this logo throughout all of their album covers and Digipaks centrally, and in all of their merchandise such as their T-Shirts and other items. So we knew that we needed to replicate this band convention and so we created this template using 2D Design V2 that is used centrally on our album cover and centrally in large size on the poster. It simply features the depiction of a demon skull in two parts with a stylised design as one side is larger than the other.

ANALYSIS OF OUR CENTRAL IMAGES A key feature of branding is logo

design and so the previous slide obviously describes the main part of our central image used throughout the digipak and the poster, the demon skull with a bullet hole through it. The logo took clear priority with being large and central in the most important areas of both media texts, the digipak and the poster in being central on the digipak album cover and large and central on the poster. The logo is famous, fitting and iconic and so we had to conform to the convention. It is also included on the back cover to strengthen the brand.

ANALYSIS OF OUR CENTRAL IMAGES CONT. However, we used the branding central images of the

Demon Hunter name also in a gnarly, underground font like the band uses to conform to the dark ‘alternative’ metal genre conventions and to look cooler rather than a boring standardised design style. It makes it more eye-catching so the marketing purpose of the branding can be a success. We also kept the typography consistent across the Digipak and poster media products to strengthen the visual theme that we created to link the two texts.

HOW WE USED THE CONCEPTS AND LINKED THEM ACROSS OUR PRODUCTS

Because the Demon Hunter logo is so iconic and crucial in their branding, we unanimously took the creative decision to symbiotically feature it in the most important eye space of the digipak and poster media texts. So we linked the logo dead central in large size on the album cover and included it dead central in large size on the poster. This was clearly linked across these two media texts.

HOW WE TARGETED OUR AUDIENCE Our central target

audience are fans of the band. From the digipak and poster media products, they expect the iconic and popular band logo to be used centrally in the design. Therefore we conformed to the convention because we knew that this would definitely be more effective for the target audience.

HOW WE TARGETED OUR AUDIENCE CONT. Our next target audience members are the fans

of the genre, metal. Their expectations are slightly different, and they expect ‘alternative’ looking or ‘underground’ design with fonts that look unique and grungy, and so we also conformed to these conventions with the unique and stylised initials of the band lettering on the digipak and the band name on the poster featuring the same eye-catching and unique font.

EVALUATION So in evaluation, Demon Hunter

use the branding of their logo as an integral, main part of their marketing. So we recreated this technique which will be effective for the target audience and added our own spray paint twist which fits in with the underground, grungy genre conventions. We linked the logo across both the digipak and the poster, in the most important spaces, in large size and central positioning as the appearance of this imagery is crucial. This is effective in my opinion because it meets the target audiences’ expectations and clearly strengthens the iconic brand Demon Hunter have built.

EVALUATION CONT. However, we made the creative decision to not

link the initials and the band name branding on the media texts. This is effective in my opinion because they are not central in the branding and also the name is needed on the poster to inform new potential customers of who the band is and not on the back of the digipak where the name is not needed.