Existing Record Logos
Every musical artist has a record label that supports them with money and publicity, but some are more famous than others mainly because of the artists that are signed up to them. I will be discussing certain record labels and their logos so that myself and my group can take influence from the genral designs and how they make the viewer feel.
7/6/2015
Decca records is one of the longest running record companies in the world. It was first established in 1929 by an English businessman named Edward Lewis. As music evolved, Decca began to grow in popularity, and by the 1950s, almost every artist was with them. Decca only support acts from the UK or US whereas the rest of the world is supported by Decca's twin organisation Universal Music Group (both subsidiaries of Vivendi). The reason for why Decca is so famous is because of it's vast range of musical genres. Decca signs vocal artists aswell as classical musical artists and film score composers such as Hans Zimmer and John Williams. They have signed such singers as Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones and even The Who.
The logo itself has been changed several times over the years to suit the era. The previous logos have been only black and white, this maybe represented the television colours in which Decca was at it's peak, but now we have new styles of music, colour has been incorporated. The variety of colours also represents the variety of genres that Decca has under their belt.
Warner Music Group (WMG) was founded in 1958 in New York. It is the largest American owned conglomerate worldwide, operating in 50 countries and earning billions every year. WMG is one of the 'big three' music labels and is the only subsidiary of Access Industries which isn't a bad thing because WMG has many different labels inside of it's organisation like Warner Classics that deal with classical music, or Warner Music Nashville which deals with country music. WMG have some of the biggest acts signed like Madonna, David Guetta, Coldplay, Frank Sinatra, Phil Collins, Prince and many more.
The logo is quite basic and the colours symbolise cleanliness and freshness. The font is bubbly which attracts an audience of all ages, and there are no capital letters which could symbolise the fact that WMG aren't serious and like to have fun. The spread-out typography could represent the range of music that they cover.
Universal Music Group (UMG) was founded in 1934 and is a subsidiary of the previously mentioned Vivendi. As of 2012, they are the biggest selling record labelin the world due to their annual turnover of over 6 billion. Since it's creation, hundreds of artists have been signed to the label due to their popularity. Their website states that the company 'markets and promotes [the artists] music across a wide array of formats and platforms. They have had some of the biggest singers in the world signed to their label, many of whom still are. These stars include Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Adele, Queen, ABBA, Elton John, Shania Twain and thousands more. UMG advertises their artists through synergy such as VEVO, which costs them nothing due to the fact that they founded the cross-platform service.
The logo features only black because of it's professional format. The font used also seems quite serious and professional because it is sans-serif and in block capitals, making it stand out. The fact that the famous Universal globe is shown also promotes the fact that they operate in several countries and simply have a worldwide appeal.
Cash Money Records (CMR) is a record label that was founded in 1991 by brothers Bryan "Birdman" Williams and Ronald "Slim" Williams, who are currently the CEOs of the company.Though it is lesser known, it is actually a subsidiary of UMG and specialises in Rap/RnB. Some of it's musicl artists include Drake, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes and even Paris Hilton. Most of the artists are american because it was founded in the States. Bryan Williams stated that the reason for it's foundation was to "get us out of the projects and into a positive way of life. And we wanted to help other people get out of this poverty", he felt that the black minority was too violent and too unheard of in the music industry. In 2013, Cash Money Records released their first music compilation record where different artists had their songs on the album, some singers contributed that weren't even part of CMR like Flo Rida and Chris Brown.
The logo itself has few colours: black, silver and white. The black is there to make the other colours stand out, and those colours symbolise money and wealth. The 'twinkles' on the dollar symbol also emphasises the wealth related to the logo. The dollar sign yet again adds to the wealth image that rap artists offen possess in order to look powerful. The sans-serif font adds formality and strictness to the logo, and symbolises how serious they take the music industry.
Arista was a wholly owned unit of Sony Music Entertainment and it was founded in 1974 by an American called Clive Davis who previously owned CBS Records (which would later become Sony Music Entertainment). It specialised in no specific genre of music as shown by it's various former artists such as Whitney Houston, Avril Lavigne, Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, P!nk, Alecia Keys, Outkast and The Monkees. This selection of artists proves how the record label signed a variety of genres. Arista even signed Milli Vanilli, the infamous lip synchers, the company was drastically effected when Milli Vanilli were found out, Arista suffered from many sales that year, gaining only one certified gold record. But then they began to gain more customers and were back on their feet again. In 2011, they were shut down, though there sister label Arista Nashville continued.
The logo is retro, possibly symbolising the decade in which they were founded. The main colours are blue and white because they are refreshing colours. The bottom of each letter redirects to the right, symbolising a constant move in a forward direction. This shows us that Arista are always moving forward and are ahead of the game.
Creation and Evaluation of our Record Label Logo
16/9/2015
Rent Boi Records is the name for a record label. The reasoning behind the name was simply because when doing group activities at Sixth Form, we always chose the humourous 'Rent Bois', it also made many other people laugh, and we hope that it will make others laugh outside of our Sixth Form. The font was chosen because it resembles the fluentness of a cable coming from headphones. The sloth was chosen because it is an uncommon animal, and as far as we are aware, not on any current record labels. The sloth will catch peoples' attention because it is an odd animal as well as a humouress animal to look at. The sloth itself symbolises tranquility and being relaxed, much like our musical attitude. We obviously take the project seriously, but will have a lot of fun along the way, our humour is shown in our logo due to it's fun font and happy photo. We chose a sloth wearing headphones to simply show our love of music and that our music will put a smile on the face of the person listening to it. The whole logo took only around the mark of 30 minutes to create, it was created on CorelDraw with little editing. The black, white and grey colours are taken from various different famous record labels as the majority feature black and white. The reason for our colours is because they are classic tones that compliment any chosen background. The reason for why we chose the genre of pop is because we researched possible genres for a while, and liked the whole aspect of being able to have fun within the music video due to the upbeat tunes. Our chosen artist also has fun within his music videos because the capability that a fun-sounding song can create
Overall, we are very happy with our final record label as we think that it represents our attitude towards the project perfectly. We are laid back like sloths and are willing to have a good laugh along the way of production. We also think that our logo actually looks more professional than current record labels out there.