–Branch MGR Logo

It has been a long time since I have featured something on this blog that I created!

Last summer my high school classmate, Andrew Branch, reached out to me about designing a logo for his songwriting ventures. Andrew is a smart, friendly guy with many talents and interests. While we were in school together, he was known as the guy everyone liked to be around. He also wasn’t shy to bust a move, especially when he was dressed up as our Blue Devil mascot! After high school Andrew studied Portuguese and Systems Engineering at the United States Military Academy in West Point.

For nostalgia’s sake, here we are back in high school during homecoming week. (Look at those youngins’!)

Now he is based in Nashville and is crafting his songwriting skills that span an array of genres on the side. Give his awesome music a listen: https://soundcloud.com/branchmgr

In Andrew’s own words, he describes his primary musical inspirations to be….

The Beatles (genres they crossed in a short time), Stromae (his ability to make tough topics dance-able), Prince (for being an uncontrollable force as a musician and not giving a hot ham what people thought of him) and Otis Redding (for being the king of Soul and an electrifying performer)…..those four are the strongest influence on me, artistically.

With a mix of pop, rock, and even country music influences, Andrew needed a logo that could speak to it all and be true to who he is as a brand. Andrew wanted the logo to say “-branch mgr” (branch manager) as his way to sign off any music he wrote and produced with the concept that he will do what he wants creatively as far as genre is concerned. “Branch” is also his last name.

First, I researched design associated with his musical inspirations, general songwriting symbolism, and music label groups while listening to his songs on Soundcloud. Then I emailed him a series of sketches.

An icon I kept returning back to was a heart. Andrew has a big heart and his music is infused with heart, as well. He was surprised by that choice, and in his email response said…

Strangely, I hadn’t considered hearts…at all. hahaha. But, you may have me pegged better than I do.

Andrew picked his favorite 4 ideas for me to focus on with an explanation of why he liked each one:

Reasoning.

• 1, the treble cleft b should just be my personal emoji for all things in life. Haha

• The 27 represents, in my mind, a heart with walls, which is very symbolic to me as that’s how I approach songwriting.

• 23 is significant in that, my moniker is -branch mgr, representing my signature being on something means I’ve approved of it as quality

• 9, I just feel is reflective of life and a pulse…music is my pulse and as displayed there, it comes from the heart.

1

27

23

9

Then it was time to move on to digital black-and-white mockups.

This was the chosen grey scale logo:

Next was color. Andrew knew he wanted a blue scheme, but I threw in a couple other color variations for good measure.

This was the winner, shown with white and black backgrounds:

I also set the icon apart for social media purposes:

Andrew was a great client to work with! I wish him well with all his songwriting endeavors.

Be sure to also check out Andrew’s website and like his Facebook page!