Task – Brand Guidelines Practice

Brand Guideline Research for Echo Sound Works

In our lecture on Week 05 we were asked to create a set of brand guidelines for an existing company to help gives us some insight on what should be included and how we can go about creating a set of rules to help a brand achieve consistency throughout their products. As soon as I found out about this project I instantly had the idea of creating a set of brand guidelines for the music production company, Echo Sound Works, who I have worked for as a freelance sound design, music producer and graphic designer for the past 5 years. Echo Sound Works is a music production company based in Burbank, California who release sample packs, sound sets, VST plug-ins and other music production assets and primarily focus their efforts on creating new and interesting drum samples, foley samples, real-world recordings and other synthetic sounds.

I thought Echo Sound Works would be a great choice for this task as over the years of creating work for them, mainly within the graphic design field, I have noticed that they don’t have a definitive set of brand guidelines to refer back to while working on projects. This made it difficult for me when I was creating digital artwork, VST skins and other graphical elements for the company as I had to use the colour picker tool to select the colour from their website which is good for digital products but what if the brand started to explore printed mediums too. There could be a number of reasons why Echo Sound Works (ESW) haven’t created a set of brand guidelines, the first being that the owner, Shane, does the majority of the leg work for the company and only has a small team working alongside him which consists of myself and his partner Ally. Another reason is that the company is still quite young and still finding its feet within the industry, creating a business from scratch is extremely hard but doing it on your own or with a small team of people is equally as hard.

Since I am good friends with Shane and have been for the last 5 years I wanted to create something that he could actually use for his business to make his life a whole lot easier when it comes to creating future products – if by any chance Shane is reading this, I will invoice you later.

Link to Echo Sound Works Website

Story/Mission Statement

The story of how Echo Sound Works was created is actually quite interesting, I have previously sparked up a conversation about this with Shane in the past as I was genuinely curious on how he started the business as music is my passion and I would love to make a full-time income from my passion. While Shane was studying at College in the United States he had found a love for music production and sound designer, a lot of his friends were doing the same thing or doing a lot of DJ work for clubs, venues and parties. His friends kept asking him for custom made sounds that they could use in their productions and DJ sets to help them stand out from the competition which led Shane to the idea of releasing custom audio samples that artists and producers can use in their projects, without having to pay any royalties. Echo Sound Works mission statement is simple, they aim to create resources to help artists and producers make better sounding music. They also aim to inspire and teach the next generation of of artists and music producers.

Tone of Voice

While conducting further research into Echo Sound Works, more specifically their tone of voice and how they speak to their audience, I noticed that they place a lot of focus on using words like “we”, “our” and “us”. This gives the sense of unity and portrays the business as having a strong team pushing them forward, even though this isn’t exactly correct with Echo Sound Works – although we are pretty good at what we do. The way the communicate to their audience through their social media pages is a little bit different in comparison to their website, the main reason for this is because their is a specific niche audience that you have to appeal to on social media and being too formal or informative can get in the way of that. You will commonly see Echo Sound Works use words like “bro” and “fire” along with other relevant emojis that are commonly used within the music production scene on social media. On the Echo Sound Works website I noticed that they are a little more direct and formal towards their audience as this is where the majority of their consumer base will end up if they are purchasing a product, this allows the brand to leave a good, lasting impression with the customer.

Logo/Monogram/Visual Marque

Echo Sound Work has redesigned it’s logo a couple of times over the past decade, the most recent redesign was the one I was asked to work on a a few years back in 2019. Initially the Echo Sound Works logo was a monogram of “ESW” which later developed into the icon style monogram logo idea that we see today, Shane initially took the letterform of the “S” in the first render on the logo and put it in a circle to create the second version of the Echo Sound Works logo which is possibly the most recognised logo by their fan base. Since we started to developing into a more modern brand we decided that the logo would benefit from being more modern too, this led to a small redesign and refinement of the Echo Sound Works pictorial logo.

Echo Sound Works Logo – Version 1

Echo Sound Works Logo – Version 3

There are a few things I noticed about how the logo is used throughout the Echo Sound Works product line and branding, the the most obvious one is that the logo is always displayed in either black or white and never in any other colour. The majority of the time the logo is displayed in the white colour that they use for their branding as it allows for a better contrast when placed on a dark or colourful background, they also opt for a dark-theme user-interface where white is a much better option for content on their digital products.

I have included a brief list of “Do’s and Don’ts” when it comes to using the Echo Sound Works logo.

Do’s

- Use Black or White
- Use Pictorial Logo & Combination Mark

Don’ts

- Don’t Use Blue
- Don’t Stretch or Warp The Logo
- Don’t Add Drop Shadows
- Don’t Overlap Pictorial Logo & Wordmark
- Don’t Rotate

Typography

I have previously discussed typography with Shane when I was designing social media infographic templates for Instagram, during our talk he said that he used the typefaces Lato and Avenir Next Pro throughout the majority of his products. While the typefaces on product packaging and digital mockups may vary the main foundation of the brand includes these 2 typefaces, with this in mind I decided to go to the Echo Sound Works website and use the inspect element function to allow me to see what fonts are actually being used throughout the website.

I noticed that they use Lato Black for the main titles and larger headings on the website, Avenir Next Pro Medium for smaller headings and sub-titles on the website and Avenir Next Pro Light for the main body copy throughout the website. I think that these fonts have a good amount of contrast between the two of them and when these fonts placed together give a sense of fun and playfulness but also portray a sense of professionalism, this is what Echo Sound Work have been trying to develop their brand to be over the past year or so. Another thing I noticed is the use of all-caps throughout the website, more specifically in sub-titles and smaller headings throughout the website, this is something I will need to consider when it comes to developing the brand guidelines for Echo Sound Works.

Below is a list of the fonts and typefaces used throughout the brand and their website.

Lato Black (Titles & Headings)
Avenir Next Pro Light (Body Copy)
Avenir Next Pro Medium (Sub-Titles & Headings)

Colour

The colours for Echo Sound Works are actually quite simple and only feature black, white, grey and blue to build the image of the brand, I personally love this colour palette as I think the electric blue contrasts nicely with the dark-themed background. Recently Echo Sound Works has started to explore pastel colours for a couple of their projects which is something that could be explored when I start refining the colour palette for their brand guidelines. I noticed that their product packaging varies depending on the style of project and music they are creating, some sample packs have darker colours where others use the lighter, pastel colours for their digital packaging. While these have their differences the layout of the product box I usually the same.

I have included a list of the brand colours below along with the basic RGB values as a starting point for further development.

Black – rgb(0, 0, 0)
Dark-Grey – rgb(36, 35, 35)
Light-Grey – rgb(96, 96, 96)
White – rgb(255, 255, 255)
Electric Blue – rgb(46, 191, 253)

Layout/Hierarchy/Sizing/Structure

Layout & Structure

The first thing I noticed from the Echo Sound Works website is that it is primarily based on a 3-column layout with a wide margin on both the left and right side, this translates into a single-column layout on smaller devices like smartphones. Since this is the only for of definitive layout and structure throughout the brand I think this could do with some further development, possibly using frameworks and design systems like Material Design and Bootstrap as a starting point. One structural element that is definitive is the placement on the brands logo and wordmark on their digital product box mock-up designs, the logo is always centred at the top of the box. Recently they have started to use a 4-column grid layout to create a series of boxes that are based on a more modular style of design, this is something I would like to consider when developing these brand guidelines further as I think modular design would fit with the values and goals of the business.

Hierarchy & Sizing

When going through the website with the inspect element tool I noticed that the hierarchy of the typographical content was all over the place, the main heading was 69px, the main body copy was 22px, the content in the footer of the website was 14px and the text used for the navigation links was 12px. This could definitely do with some refinement to allow for a more consistent appearance of the brand across multiple devices and digital mediums, similar to the structure and layout of the brand the sizing and hierarchy could also benefit with using frameworks and design systems to create a solid foundation for building a consistent brand.

Illustration/Iconography/Animation/Photography/Videography

Illustrations

Illustrations are not really used throughout the overall brand but they are commonly used for product packaging designs. When illustrations are created they often give off that fun and playful feel to them which is something they should put at the forefront of their brand, If illustrations are used they are often quite simplistic, colour and based around geometry and basic shapes. Personally I prefer the more modern style of illustration Echo Sound Works has started using which is a more realistic, three-dimensional style of design in comparison to what they previously went with, I think style style of design shows the quality of the brands products and services in addition to still being able to use bright colours to present themselves as a fun and playful brand.

I have included some examples of these illustration styles below to demonstrate their differences.

Iconography

The first thing I noticed about the iconography throughout the brand is that there is not a lot of consistency and it seems like one big experiment to see which style of icon works best. In my opinion I think the minimalistic, line-art style icons suit the brand a lot better than the larger style icons as they match the more recent design of the logo, my recommendation on using icons throughout the brand would be to find a icon set that has a modern, playful and minimalistic aesthetic to fit the brand and what direction they plan to go in.

Motion & Animation

Motion and animation is rarely used through the brand although it is not completely obsolete, Echo Sound Works uses animation and motion graphics as their main source of advertising for their products as they release an animated audio visualiser video to demonstrate the sounds that are included with the product and the potential of what could be made. Similar to how the illustrations vary from project to project, this is exactly the same with these audio visualiser animations. This could do with some form of refinement but overall I like the idea of having each product designed differently to the other as it keeps things interesting, some sort of formula or guidelines could be beneficial for workflow and efficiency though.

In some of Echo Sound Works older videos on YouTube they featured an introduction motion graphic video as a part of their brand, this could be something that could work extremely well for the brand and is definitely something to consider as they release a lot of educational content on these types of social media platforms and having this for of visual branding could translate across multiple other platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Example of Introduction Motion Graphic

Photography

Photography is another element that is rarely used throughout the brand, Shane is an extremely private person and doesn’t like being in front of the camera which makes it difficult to source photography that is true to the Echo Sound Works brand. If photography is used it is usually based on the theme of music, audio production and sound design as this is what the brand is about but overall try and opt for illustrations, motion graphics, animation and videos as opposed to photography. I personally think that photography could be used in some elements of the brand like social media platforms but overall I think illustrations and motion graphics are a better fit for the brand and really help enhance the idea of the brand being fun and playful.

Videography

Videography is extremely important when it comes to branding of Echo Sound Works, as Shane does the majority of the marketing for the company himself he uses a lot of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok to get his content seen by people around the world. As social media is becoming more and more video based this makes it crucial for the brand to have some form of consistency when it comes to creating videos, this also expands on the idea of creating a motion graphic or introductory animation for the video to help imprint the brand and logo into the viewers minds. I noticed that there is some form of consistency when it comes to the layout of their video content on YouTube, its common that they overlay a thumbnail image and screen record when they are creating a tutorial video so having so form of layout and structure for this would really help the brand achieve some form of consistency and help make their videos instantly recognisable.