dache.ch

Grooveshark is an international music platform. The describe themselves as a large scale peer-2-peer network, built behind a social network online. Their users are able to stream full length songs, build playlists, share music and make friends all for free. There are downloads available at small fee which come from other Grooveshark users. This fee is used to give artists, labels, and publishers their entitled cut and the remaining money is split between Grooveshark and the user who the download came from, thereby rewarding people for sharing their music.

They approached me to create a logo which communicated a professional image while at the same time remaining approachable, recognisable and making particular reference to the music element of their business.

After brainstorming, my initial thoughts were to make custom typography, as this was of importance to the client to have a font recognisable to them. The result was as below but did not have the correct feel. Had this been for a sports brand, I would have pushed it further but this was left as an initial sketch.

After some consultation with the client, it was decided to pursue the idea of an actual symbol. The first of these was a shark with a sleek curves. This was a nice symbol but did not reference the music aspect, therefore was discarded.

I then worked on keeping the whole shark image but incorporating a musical symbol. This was also set aside, as the musical symbol gave a classical music impression which was too restrictive to the client.

The image of the whole shark was put on hold in favour of working with just the fin. In effect this was the turning point in the project, as the fin is the recognised part of the shark and it did not need anything further. This is one of the initial sketches for the fin, incorporating some colour.

The below gives an idea of how I produced the fin shape using geometry

In staying with the music idea and as an alternative to the colour fin, I revisited the whole shark idea and made this image using vertical sound bars:

This vertical bar design was also tested on the fin image below:

After more research and discussion with the client, it was agreed that at a smaller scale, the sound bars and other detail was lost. Together, we decided a simple fin in a circle was the preferred symbol with a toned down version of the customised font.

The next stage was to experiment with where to place the text in relation to the symbol:

I was still not happy with the positioning of the fin within the circle, as I believe that even curved shapes should be geometrically correct therefore below are some sketches which I made in order to finalise the positioning.

After many, MANY tweaks we had the final result which the client and I was happy with.

As always I welcome all comments, I am interested to hear any feedback and look forward to interacting with you soon.

Many thanks
David