I recently completed a small branding project for Scène 1425, a local concert promoter who’s mandate is to bring quality rock shows outside of the Montreal city center to all the music starved kids in les banlieues (Laval et al). They’ve built a large, loyal following and were in need of a new logo that captured the spirit of not only the company, but the growing scene surrounding it.

Though the budget was tight, the cause was good, so I embarked with enthusiasm on the rush project. The process was a lot of fun, and inspired by designer and blogger David Airey, I thought I would take a moment to share it here for posterity and potential clients. Given the budget and time constraints, some corners were cut in design development and implementation, but I’m pretty happy with the end result that is now being implemented by Scène’s in-house designers.

After meeting and chatting with Julien Aidelbaum of Scène 1425, I had a pretty good idea of the territory to explore. He brought along some references, which is always nice, and also mentioned how much he liked Pop Montreal‘s iconic hand-drawn branding (which coincidentally, is art directed by my good friend Jason DelMarr).

I devoted a healthy proportion of my hours to research as I knew I wouldn’t have to be developing collateral. This helped to make the concepting phase go a bit faster and I eventually proposed 3 distinct directions for Julien to choose from.

The first concept was inspired by a story Julien told me about a semi-spontaneous outdoor show that happened on the banks of the St-Laurent. A cool summer night, with more and more people being drawn in as they wandered by, and the way he told it, it sounded magical. The moon seemed like a great symbol to allude to the possibilites of an evening in suburbia (no offense to les lavallois), if you know where to look.

The second concept was much more direct. Bold, distinctive, typographic, and geometric. Though legibility certainly suffered, I liked how the play with the negative space created the sense of lighting on a stage and could see the logo really coming to life with different graphic treatments.

The final (chosen) concept brought back the funk and fun combining my love of squids with my love for Underware‘s Bello. The squid was a perfect metaphor for the tentacles of indie pop culture reaching out into new environs across the water and the type spoke to the sophisticated fun one would have at Scene1425’s shows.

Once the concept was chosen I quickly developed a few logo variations and colour samples. In the end, we decided to stick to black and white, but another issue emerged out of the review process. Sammi (as the squid was dubbed) looked, all subtlety aside, a bit like a dick! Now personally, I’m a fan of inserting phallic imagery wherever I can. Its an unwritten design rule that penis-like shapes possess subliminal powers of attraction, but I understood the client’s concerns. The problem is once something’s been seen, it’s kinda hard to unsee it and this proved to be the most arduous part of the process.

After much trial and error, we finally settled on a more bulbous version of Sammi that everyone was happy with.

With the final logo components handed off, it’s now up to Scène’s designers to bring them to life. Check out their various web spaces to see how the project develops, and if you’re ever in Laval, keep an eye out for Sammi, he’ll be sure to show you a good time.