noises from dog n’ moon.

We get called from time to time to work with agencies who need outside help. Since we move and breathe like freelancers, this falls right into the normal flow of our everyday workload. With this particular project, we were called to work on magazine ads for a piece of hardware for bass guitar players that will start shipping in Q2 of 2008. It represents the latest and greatest in musical instrument digital technology and it’s the latest in a long line of similarly-named predecessors. Since the parent company is Japanese, very few of the edgy ideas can be considered viable options- the company normally chooses more conservative advertising messages. But agencies need to stay sharp and be able to deliver a wide variety of advertising approaches, just in case the client wants to go edgy in the future. We never want to get so set in our ways that a client feels that they need to look elsewhere to make slight campaign changes. 
Enjoy.

This is our most recent work for Azusa Pacific University’s School of Music. We started building this thing last year while it was still in production and it’s great to see it finally head off to duplication. We tried to keep with this larger, grander, more celestial mood for the artwork. We didn’t want to do anything that was too tongue-in-cheek or playful because we wanted to avoid anything that would detract from the reverence. And that was certainly self-imposed, the fine folks at APU have always been really receptive to our more “outside” ideas. The final design:

Here are the two alternate designs we submitted.
While both offered a unique take on the idea of Music of Heaven, I feel great about the one they chose. The second idea listed Biblical text that included the word “music”, but it felt like it would make a better poster design. The very nature of compact discs is that you’re wanting the cover to draw the user in, to make him or her want to open the case and experience the revelation of sight and sound. The “Biblical Text” idea didn’t offer enough intrigue, in my opinion.  

The third idea had all the grandeur that we were aiming for, but the subtle cross was a little too subtle. And any attempts to make it less subtle immediately made it too gratuitous. You know, “there’s a fine line between genius and stupid”, as Nigel Tuffnel would say. In this case we felt like subtlety was the better choice, but to some, it would just look like we dumped the title over some stock photography to increase the comp count. 

The final idea never actually made it to submission. Since we decided that this needed to be something less tongue-in-cheek, we opted not to include it in the comp delivery. I don’t personally feel like it’s too playful, but there’s an edginess and a confident swagger that goes along with using vintage and vibey designs for a product. I felt like the confident swagger ran counter to the mood and message of the music, so we never pitched it. I gotta tell you, though, I love this design, and feel like it’s gonna see the light of day elsewhere, as long as it fits the mood, message, and target audience of the product. If we intended to use it just because it’s hip, it would be at the top of this post.
 

I have this friend who is steeped in the world of interesting images. He’s like that utility guy that always seems to see what’s cool long before the rest of us. The crazy moped advertising guys from this older post? My buddy was hired to train them. Who knew? On September 11, 2001, he happened to be living in an apartment just blocks away from Ground Zero and has painted a beautiful tale of what that day looked like. He’s got experience working for a Manhattan advertising firm, experience building cars for the motion picture industry (Transformers, anyone?), and a life-long love of cars, motorcycles, and lives that go too fast for the rest of us. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone when he started Frequent Flyer Productions while spending months-at-a-time on the road, traveling around doing nationwide advertising research. Frequent Flyer Productions is a full-service pre-production, shoot, and edit house for any video needs. When he wanted to update his identity, he called us to see if we could help. The twist is that many of his clients are Southern California females planning their perfect weddings, so the “go-fast, greaser, skull-n-crossbones” imagery wasn’t going to fly with the wedding crowd. We had to find a way to still be edgy, but not too scary for a princess. He settled on these (two alternate versions of the same brand):

And- as always, we created a few other marks that we thought were cool, so we don’t feel guilty sharing those with you.

Feel free to get a hold of us to see if we can hep you with your own branding needs. And do us a favor and head over to Frequent Flyer Productions for your video needs. They’re good people.