LOGO + BRAND IDENTITY
BRAND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT BRIEF
UNITED DRUM CIRCLES
United Drum Circles (UDC) has been facilitating team-building, wellness, and educational interactive presentations to local businesses, non-profits, schools, and public services. Founder Roberto Gutierrez provides this with his drum circles. All are welcome and the communities he serves are diverse in age, race, gender, and economic status. Despite their different backgrounds they all begin to share this inclusive experience with a sense of togetherness and delight.
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The organization has been presenting for years, but has just begun to branch out and catch momentum. Anticipating the growth of this service we began to talk about defining a cohesive look and brand. Among a logo, they also needed elements that could help brand the organization on social media, emails and flyers. So we got to work on developing some exuberant looks matching the enthusiasm found at one of their events. It was also communicated that the colors should be red, black, yellow and green acknowledging Africa where most of the attribution to drum circles, their rhythms, and their instruments begins.
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Deliverables
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1 brand logo
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Brand identity guide
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Wordmark Logo​
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Emblem Logo lockup
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Textures and secondary visuals
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Typography
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Color palette
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Introductory video
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Flyer
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Workfiles and several file types/sizes
COMBINATION MARK LOGO DESIGN
Final Logo Design + Variations
Since the demographic UDC serves is a wide range, it was a balance between a professional look and something that is a little more accessible expressing the nature of the events.
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After presenting a few options (See 2nd segment of this page below) this was the logo we finalized. It is colorful, exuberant, fun and has a little bit of an edge but clean cut enough to be attractive professional organizations.
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The nature of the drum circles is represented in the denotative image of the drum and the circular emblem. If you notice the "bead" work and the abstract design that encircles the image is the petroglyphs of pre-columbian cultures and others across the world. In Colombian terms this may to symbolize the solstices - Sun. Cyclical seasons. Circles. Regarding the nature of United Drum Circles it is also fitting that these two elements are pan-culture. Roberto mentioned the beads also reminded him of people. People sitting around in the drum circle.
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The drum head in plain white needed a something extra. The hand print adds more of the human element and also a bit of energy as if the drum head is being hit creating a sound.
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As you can see some variations were given to meet any circumstance. This allows for flexibility in different applications.
WORDMARK LOGO
The lock up combination logo is striking image. In some applications it may be best to have a simplistic representation so we produced these two wordmark options.
The typeface was bold and modern, but how could we give it that extra "something" to tie it in further with brand. To embellish the "united" aspect of the brand name certain letters have their legs and arms stretched into the neighboring word.
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In order to strike that balance between hitting a professional tone with a humanistic touch, in illustrator the typeface was given an uneven edge. This also is a tip of the hat to the petroglyphs that inspired parts of the design (see development section below).
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Typefaces tend to appear as if they have shrunk when they appear in darker colors. It is noticed when comparing the two images below. This was considered, but it was decided that the irradiation illusion does not impact the design or it's legibility so it was not compensated for in the design.
CUSTOM ICONS + TEXTURES + ASSETS
To aid in branding it is helpful to use icons, custom textures and other visual assets that tie into the brand. These were pulled from the final logo design. There usage may be determined by how prominent or subdued they must appear.
TYPOGRAPHY + COLORS
Typography
As with the logo design it was a balance between an approachable, vibrant and humanistic style and a presentable clean-cut professional aesthetic. Considerations were also given to legibility on smaller screens.
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Bowbly offers a humanistic touch to a bold and neatly-structured letter forms. Perfect to grab the attention and excitement that is such a part of UDC.
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While Bowbly takes most of the credit of giving us character, Maven Pro supports the functional role.
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Both modern sans-serif fonts that together communicate the aesthetic of the brand clearly and concisely.
Colors
Consideration was given to giving the main tones of color different saturations, but in relation to the type of organization this is it was ultimately decided to keep the colors as vibrant and alive as the drums circles of UDC they are representing. Drums are loud, boisterous, and fun. The colors reflect that.
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It is also important to consider different contexts of how where the brand appears. In respect to that here are secondary colors that are shades of the primary. These are also the colors apparent in the final logo design.
FUNCTIONAL ASSETS
Marketing assets that were produced for United Drum Circles. The business cards were formatted to the printer's templates, the flyers can serve as digital flyers as well as print, and lastly the video was produced as an discovery awareness video for social media.
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Illustrator was used to create the logo and the business cards, but the 3D mock up was created in Blender.​
Business Cards
Digital + Print Flyers
​Flyers were composed in Photoshop. Organizations and schools that United Drum Circles works with may tend to one demographic. 3 versions were necessary as they covered these demographics: kids, young adults, and seniors.
SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO
The video was edited using a mix of Premiere and Adobe After Effects. Premiere took care of all the overarching edits, cuts and color grading, while After Effects drove the motion graphics.
BRAND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
The process of discovering how the brand is communicated visually is one with many iterations and considerations. The following content is intended to show the range of decisions that were taken to produce the United Drum Circles identity.
INDUSTRY RESEARCH
We took a look at competitors as well as the organizations that United Drum Circles has (and has yet) to work with. We researched the latter because it's good to see what may be attractive to them as well. Through this process information can be gathered as to certain common colors, shapes, overlays, typefaces and general compositions.
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This is a good gauge how our design holds up in the industry.
INITIAL SKETCHES
There are many variations that were investigated including line weight, line quality, circle themes, and letter forms and how they relate to one another. Breaking down the shapes to their basic forms as they became abstract. You can see attempts at using a drum head with hands over it. Hands used to create the bowls within letter forms. Always conscious of bringing elements from the organization.
PRELIMINARY LOGO + TYPOGRAPHY + COLOR TREATMENTS
Once a few ideas were chosen to explore further they were paired with typography in order to understand what each typeface can lend to the characteristics of the organization. Each were created in Illustrator, or in the case of the final image manipulated in Photoshop then brought back into Illustrator.
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Among these designs are abstract treatments: Geometric, humanistic approaches. Denotative designs were also produced. These are traditional in nature as they conjure up logos from percussion instrument manufacturers.
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A range of typefaces and color schemes were experimented with. From geometric modern type to handwritten letters each has characteristics that offer interesting ways of relating to United Drum Circles. Composition and size contrasts also help draw the eye to certain areas of the logo. Colors also have a way of drawing focus creating depth and hierarchy.
