Audio Animal, a new Los Angeles recording project created by local dj/producers Oodee and Malio, is attempting to secure quick online presence for their wide selection of dance tracks.  They want to elicit a style that’s unique and unpredictable, as well as a brand image that’s ample enough to encompass a wide array of musical genres from dance to indie to experimental soundtracks and ambient.

With the preponderance of digital downloading, and an international nightclub crowd that is constantly expanding, the electronic music scene is now more saturated, diverse, and competitive than ever.  To succeed, a new label must have sufficient talent and ingenuity, as well as a grasp of the nuances of the marketplace and its shifting trends.  A good-looking Brand ID can help, especially if the core values of the brand are effectively typified by the design, and just as importantly, the application and usage of the logotype.

Audio Animal, as a name, ostensibly stands out – and it might be tempting to create a figurative interpretation of the phrase, combining the image of an ‘animal’ with some representation of ‘audio’, likely a speaker (in fact, we’ve included at least one direction that is comprised of those two depictions) – but simple literal deduction does not necessarily arouse interest beyond the merely visible.  There are numerous solutions for a logotype that can evoke the descriptive components of a title like Audio Animal – most of them quite obvious.  It’s the conspicuousness that presents the challenge: how can we create a unique and impressionable brand ID, if the look of it is predictable, and therefore manifestly unremarkable?  Which is not to say that an obvious solution will fail; in fact it might just be the harbinger of commercial success, and it’s why we’ve included at least one direction that is outwardly unsurprising.  However, if the label is to present itself as a product that’s original and captivating, a bit of exploration, abstraction and innovation might also pay off.

Here’s the main image for LATC’s Face of the World, aka, their Fall season.  I feel like the Historic Core, as it’s been designated by downtown LA booster types, saw it’s heyday just around the Wall Street Crash of 29.  With the exception of a few New Deal building constructed for civic aims, the late 20’s was when all construction pretty much halted.  So the neighborhood around Spring, Main and Broadway between 2nd and 9th is like a time capsule of the era.  Stunning facades abound (and regrettably several completely dilapidated, and others facing a worse fate from callous developers), and the uninterrupted collection of 20’s buildings along 7th Street is a favorite for film shoots looking for a plausible Manhattan street scene.

As the LATC is pretty much in the thick of it all, we’ve attempted to encapsulate the historic charm of the neighborhood, add bit of postmodern irony, an lure people into the high drama that is downtown Los Angeles.

The LATC’s fall season, Face of the World starts in September, which means we’ve got to go to print with the collateral last week.  Keeping the posters very title-centric, which might prove to be a more attractive solution than the time consuming illustrations that I had planned to do.  I’m going to try out that ‘less is more’ thing.  These are the first two production posters, 6 more to go.

Published in 1984, Aradi Nora So-Ky Kepzomuveszeti Kiado Aradi Nora, is a collection of 34 posters created by the Hungarian design duo, So-Ky. I picked it up in Budapest when was traveling in the Eastern Bloc as a student in the late 80’s, and since then it’s been one of my most influential and inspirational possessions. I’m going to try and get a translation of the text, all of which is in Hungarian, and I suspect reveals quite a bit about the political and aesthetic motivations of this most prodigious team.  I’ve managed to find one copy selling for €50 at the Parisian rare-book store, Librairie la Poussière du Temps, located in Saint-Germain at 16 Rue de Tournon, and it’s also available online through the same link.  I highly recommend that you get your hands on this collection, it’s peerless as both as a memento of late European Communism, as well as a stunning exemplar of the graphics that accompanied this tumultuous age.  In addition to the poster collection, a 30 page black and white catalog of earlier poster work, as well as a selection of late-communist era logotypes, is included.