Background

My client had been working as a freelance producer for a couple of years. He’d already been involved in some exciting productions and he decided that he wanted a platform to attract directors do more extravagant productions.

Challenge

The client had big ambitions for the brand to look cutting and exciting. Nothing existed. He needed to align with the far out productions he’d been involved with. He needed something that would stand out from his competitors and attract talented directors. He had a tight budget.

Solution

Stage 1 & 2 – Research & Analysis

We did an initial discovery phase where I interviewed my client and go to grips with how his market worked and analysed what he needed.

Stage 3 – Creative

After the research stage I jumped into ideas, I extracted a few insights, thinking about what production company’s do and his approach to it the ideas included:

• The pure uncompromised idea
• Creation and exposure of alternate realities
• Railing against your lot in life with creation
• Unflinching pursuit of the weird
• Finding the right tools for the job and using them without compromise
• Extreme and unflinching

With these I’d pulled out two specifically and developed some visual concepts which could express the creative. The idea of using a portal inspired by the screams in Francis Bacon paintings felt like it was working best.

Stage 3 – Development

Using the insight that production of films is the creation of ‘alternate realities’, as well as a visual concept of a scream/chasm/portal we moved forward with the creation of a logo and exploring further visual tools, typography, colours and images.

We made some broad strokes to the development in this stage, exploring roughly what style of typeface we wanted to go with as well as how the scream icon could be used

Stage 4 – Refinement

In this stage we honed in on the exact typefaces we wanted to use, something which alluded to pulp-horror style books and largely inspired by one of their latest productions about a cursed 80’s aerobics vhs that on watching, it opened a gateway to hell’. (5 stars I highly recommend)

We also refined the exact shape of the portal icon and redrew the type to sit comfortably underneath it.

We discussed the subtleties of this typeface vs that very similar typeface as well as addressing any final concerns before going into production.

Other than black and white I did not specify a further colour palette, instead I recommended the use of images —either highly cropped or distorted— to inject some irregularities into the identity and allude to the output and attitude of the company.

Stage 5 – Production

I created and packaged everything my client needed. Purchasing typeface licences, creating logo files for use across media and scales, brand guidelines and a holding website for Formed.

The guidelines included everything someone would need to use the brand, or pass on to a third party to use including, how to use the logo, what not to do with the logo, colours and