Domino Records (rebrand research)

A major part of my brief - is to redesign (rebrand) Domino Records of London. I thought my best bet would be to look into current record labels around the UK to see if there are any current trends, styles or themes to their logos. The first set of logos I have below are all black and white using grey scale for shades and depths. The logos attached are a selection of the best brand designs i could first find in my initial research:

• MySpace Records is one of my favorite designs. Keeping in theme with the MySpace logo using the silhouettes of people with large headphones is simple, affective and recognisable.
• 2 Tone Records have a different approach to their logo. Taking an image of a classic vinyl and adding some collage images with classic type. It makes a very unique and distinctive design - which I feel is one of the best I have researched so far.
• Evermore Records has a brilliant logo. Using a custom typeface and a hand rendered vinyl image it produces and affective and innovative design.

The designs above using tones of green are all mockups for different brands. I chose to take this from my research to show how creative you can be - and how simple. I do like a couple of the designs above:

• Lomax - the design consists of a large curved typeface which is also 3D. It also has two arrows and paint running from the bottom of the design. I like the design as its simple yet eye catching - layout is essential in all design work, if the arrows were in a different location or the type was smaller the design would not work as-well as it currently does.
• Rubik Recordings has another simple yet affective logo. Using the basic lines from a Rub-ix Cube and a unique, eye-catching typeface - an affective logo was produced.

Domino - Other Designs

I have decided to do some very basic research to start with and see what I find. The word 'Domino' is immediately associated with Dominos Pizza - I think you will agree. So i decided to look deeper into other brands, shops, restaurants etc with the name Domino. I found around 15 examples in my research 3 of which were simple clip-art designs which I have decided not too include in this.

The examples below range in terms of design. Some are very simple, cheap and cheesy feel - where as some are designed with nice type, colour, layout etc. To some up the majority of the designs below: I will take a lot from looking at these designs e.g.: colour, scale, type, layout and imagery. I will also take this chance to see that it will be hard to make a logo for Domino Records - without some sort of association with a domino. Emailing Domino Records could help here to find out if there is a story behind the name.

Below: This design is very professional. Beautiful design using very nice font. The font itself however i associate with music - more specifically the d&b genre. The design however is nice and works its part to attract customers. By adding the simple 'Galeria' text at the bottom the logo becomes more specific and legible.

Below: This is definitely my favorite design which I found relating to Domino. Its bold vibrant background colour and stone white type is immediately eye-catching. The layout of the text and general design is very well finished. Although i see this design working more towards television - possibly for an ident, i still feel its a good piece to work from.

Domino Records

Domino Recording company, generally known as Domino Records is an independent record label based in London. There is also a wing of the label based in the USA in the Brooklyn offices. Domino Records was founded in 1993 by Laurence Bell and Jacqui Rice who cater for solo artists, bands and groups in the Indie rock/pop genre. 2003 saw the label's 10th anniversary - there were a number of new releases, as well as a compilation album and a series of gigs in London under the 'Worlds of Possibility' Banner, to celebrate the label's first decade in October of that year.

Domino Records has worked with big artists in the Indie world and remains a huge success as far as record labels are concerned. Working with artists such as:

• The Arctic Monkeys
• The Fall
• These New Puritans
• Four Tet
• The Kills
• Franz Ferdinand
• The Last Shadow Puppets

The record label works with well known artists and I feel they need a more themed logo.