What’s in a name? Your “brand” is your ultimate identity. It may begin and end with a logo design or your profile photo on your Facebook page. Your brand is how the world sees you. Your brand tells your essence. Your brand is sacred. To compete in today’s world your brand must stand alone, be easily remembered, and associate specifically with your personae, product or service. Your logo is an excellent place to start and is perhaps the single most important element of a brand. But your brand doesn’t end with that logo. Consider as part of your brand your color palette, your style of photography or imagery. You or your product should be recognized effortlessly in any of your visual communications. Consider some of these examples. When you see two interlocking back to back letter C’s you instantly recognize that as CHANEL be it a fragrance, clothing, eyeglasses or handbag...when you see the simply lit studio photo of a tot or teen you may recognise a GAP ad without actually seeing the small unassuming logo centered near the bottom of the page. A combination of a specific red and blue may suggest a certain cola product. If you are an entertainer your hair style, and attire can be an integral part of your brand. The Rolling Stones "hot lick" logo designed by Milton Glaser in the 70's certainly represents Mick Jagger’s lips. Today there is so much visual stimuli available to us that being succinct with your branding has become more essential to success than ever before.

CASE STUDY - Dave Mason

UPDATE JAN 2022 - After a long Covid19 break Dave's back to doing what he loves on the road with "World In Changes" Dave Mason's band, Johnny Sambaturo, Alvino Bennett, Billy Mason on Keys and Ray Cardwell adds actual bass guitar and I sure like the way that sounds! Dav, while quarentined made a cool video he calls Dave Mason & the Quarentines featuring a host of notable facetime zoomers including: Samy Hagar, Michael McDonald, Mick Fleetwood on drums, Pat Simmons, Tom Johnston, John McFee, Alvino Bennett and others! check it out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=327679758399344   

I began working with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dave Mason in 2012, I was originally booked to make new publicity photos, the results of which Dave was very pleased. When Dave noticed the breadth of services offered from my shop he added my number to his speed dial and the calls began with gusto!

LOGO DESIGN:
When Asked to create a poster for the "unplugged" tour around one of the favorite images from that first shoot I presented a stylized version of his name. I fell in love with the font "University Roman" back in my art school days...I was particularly fond of the "S" and the little tails and flourishes on certain letters...alas Dave Mason's new logo was born...

UNPLUGGED:
For Dave's 2012/2013 Unplugged Tour I provided ad design protocol as shown to the right. The selected portrait image enjoyed wide usage across the country in publicity, display ads, posters and more. Later in 2013 Dave announced he was calling the full band together and plugging in to tour the world. He created a new show reworking the hit songs from the band he co-founded in 1967...Traffic. Dave had asked me to modify the images we had used for The "unplugged" tour but it just didn't seem to have the right lilt to effectively represent the "Summer of Love" electric stylings of the music of Traffic.

TRAFFIC JAM:
Inspired by 1960's psychedelic rock posters, I created this new image for Dave Mason's Traffic Jam - World Tour - 1967-2014. I chose another photo from the original photo session and mind-altered it a bit, threw in a day glow homage to his former hair (long hair also iconic of the 60's) and picked a font to capture the alright feeling with the San Francisco / Haight Ashbury vibe. Resulting Traffic Jam poster and merch sales are brisk!

TRAFFIC JAM MERCH:
Posters, tee shirts, tour programs, laminated and sticker passes, guitar picks, baseball hats, CDs, records and more ensued. In the printing process, flourescent inks are used in place of process color wherever possible and this stuff looks ultra groovy under black light!

A 12" VINYL LP RECORD COVER!:
A dream job for a designer of my vintage today must be to design a 12" folding record cover. Dave had provided an image of himself that was made in 1976 by none other than Mr. Graham Nash at his home in Hawaii. An apt image for the front cover of "Futures Past" to be sure. I believe it was made from the process of an altered polaroid on which, as they were developing, you would push the dyes around with a stick and get these cool "painterly" impressionistic images, that process was certainly trending in the mid 70's. I wanted to add something special of my own that would resonate with Dave's loyal fans...down the inside center spine of the folding cover I printed life size photos of a half dozen or so seeds and a few stems over my Traffic Jam image...many of you are too young to remember vinyl records, let alone when your bud had seeds...and/or cleaning your stash inside folding record jackets...but that's what we did back then. I hear most all of today's dank is seedless. For the "Dave Mason Future's Past" Recording I also produced an eco envelope, 6 panel digipack and a traditional jewel case artwork for the CD version of this recording.

It was also my extreme pleasure to have had the opportunity to sit in on a studio recording session of the song "Good 2 You" at the same time making action photos of Dave's bandmates and crew. Alvino Bennett on Drums, Anthony Patler on keys, Jason Roller on Guitar as well as Fred and Matt turning knobs and keeping it real. Dave Mason is a master of his craft. It's truly amazing to watch him work.

Branding for Nina Canacci

Other Jensen Logos