Brand identity for electronic music

Rainbow Conspiracy is an ongoing electronic music project based in London. Its work moves between rhythm and atmosphere, and draws on club culture, memory and lived experience.

It prefers slow listening to immediacy and treats each release as a world of its own, told through music, image and gesture. We gave those worlds a common identity: a wordmark, an icon, an alphabet, a colour rule and the guide that holds them together. The identity extends to the artwork for the project’s releases.

An identity that designers and collaborators can apply without drifting from the artist’s vision.

The guide says as much in its introduction: its rules are there so that everything made for the project stays aligned, recognisable and true to that vision, whoever makes it.

What the guide covers

• The logo system: how the wordmark is constructed, the icon, and how both are applied.
• The colour system and the reasoning behind it.
• Typography: one typeface for titles, one for text.

Every part starts from the same few shapes: arcs, circles and straight lines on a square grid.

• Wordmark

  The name on two lines, in letters drawn for the project. Supplied in positive and negative.

• Icon

  The initials R and C in a circle, as an outline, a solid disc and a fine line.

• Alphabet

  A full alphabet, capitals and lower case, drawn in the manner of the wordmark.

• Colour

  A colour rule built on the three channels of a screen: red, green and blue.

• Typography

  Two typefaces with a job each: Apotek Comp and Helvetica Neue.

• Brand guide

  The rules in one document: construction, clear space, positive and negative use, colour and typography.

The guide keeps its rules few and exact.

• Grid and clear space

  The wordmark is built on a grid. Its proportions, and the space kept clear around it, are measured in its own x-height. The icon follows the same rule.

• Red, green and blue

  Colour comes from the three channels of a screen. Their overlaps give the identity its full spectrum, and the guide reads them as layers, depth and motion.

• Two typefaces

  Apotek Comp, tall and condensed, sets titles and calls to action. Helvetica Neue sets text and general information.

• One picture world

  The pages of the guide share their imagery: flowers in close-up, light drawn out into bands, and grain over near-black.