A collaborative work between myself and now collage designer Cal Carmichael. A friend of a friend had started a new business in music recording and engineering. Cal took the call and together we created "Tough Sound".
Tough Sound Music Solutions is a new music recording and production studio being set up in Edinburgh UK. I beautiful city full of art and culture. Tough Sound came to myself and Cal (who at the time were working under the studio Juicy Minds) to create a logo that was "Strong, Traditional, and Musical". The client specificed early that time was short and needed a functioning, monochrome logo in a week!
THE CHALLENGE
Condensing the design process into just 7 days was a challenge. Fortunately Cal was excellent at delegation and conceptualising. The logo, we decided, should reflect the feeling of Edinburgh. Traditional, winding streets, and strong, stone buildings. The logo had to have a single colour, with positive and negative options. With the most interesting part of the project being the incorperation of a musical instument into the logo.
THE SOLUTION
The final logo was pulled from a selection of concepts between us both. The preferred logo was made by myself. With Cal liaising with the client.
A simple type mark using the glyphs T and S. The letters stacked on top of each other in a beautiful way. The S wrapping smoothly around the strong T, giving the impression of music winding around the guitar (which was incorporated into the negative space of the T stem). The Serif typeface was used to reflect the history and the age of Edinburgh. The Letters contrasted each other nicely, with a Strong, immovable letter T. Coupled with a smooth, winding, musical S. Solid Serif font was used as the text, balanced carefully to create a slight amount of motion. With the eye starting at the head of the guitar. Moving down and right with the bend of the S. Finishing by moving to the left of the text.
At every stage of user engagement you get a strong sense of Tough Sounds values: Strong, Traditional, Rock Music".
