Designing a brand and digital experience that goes beyond standard luxury and audio tropes to represent a premium service offering that goes beyond the realms of conventional sound.
CLIENT: Resonique Studio
INDUSTRY: Audio
AGENCY: MADE
ROLE: Design Lead
OVERVIEW
Resonique is an audio engineering & production consultants, consisting of elite audio engineers and audiologists with a niche client base of elite commercial creative audio (galleries, art installations) and luxury consumer audio (yachts, private jets, private cinema). They required a complete creative solution that represented their approach to audio as a combination of art & science, reflecting their elite expertise and use of the latest technology.
Brief in Brief
WANT: High impact branding, brand collateral, website design, and campaign design for a niche audience of creative specialist and high end audiophiles.
AESTHETIC: Striking and bold, whilst avoiding only using the standard tropes of luxury and audio branding. Considering art, technology, and the notion of sound as a force of nature.
DELIVERABLES: Branding (Inc Naming), Brand Collateral, Digital Signage & Wayfinding, Web Design, Social Media Assets, EDM Assets, Print Ads
Challenges
IMAGERY: A key aspect of the brief was to avoid conventional audio and audio studio tropes (sound desks and mics) as Resonique is not a conventional audio. The team wanted to reflect Resonique's position as elite audio consultants (or sorcerers) and to represent the fine line between art and science at this level of audio engineering.
BALANCING CREATIVITY & LUXURY: In addition to the world of galleries and audio-visual installations, the other core segment of Resonique's audience is luxury consumer audio. With each segment having quit a different profile, it was important to strike a balance between reflecting creative technology and high end luxury expertise.
SOLUTION
Born from an extensive research phase and collaboration with the team, 2 main influences for the branding and art directions were determined:
CYMATICS: Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Chladni plates are a common experiment related to this where the accumulation of sand at nodes of vibrating plate reveals resonance patterns. They are flat, vibrating plates that demonstrate the complex patterns of standing waves in two-dimensional objects. They are used to visualize the physical nature of sound and provided a rich source of visual inspiration for the project.
NIKOLA TESLA: Nikola Tesla dedicated a large part of his career to the study of sound as was facinated with the notion of sound as a force of nature and energy. Due to the era of Tesla's science there are "non-scientific" aspects to his work such as art and mysticism, and a number of quotes by Tesla would go on to form a key part of the brand positioning and identity.
1. "Sound is a form of energy that propagates in waves and can have a tremendous impact on our reality"
2. "If you want to understand the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency & vibration. "
Chladni's vibrating resonance patterns using sand grains - Tyndall-1869
Chladni plate simulation (using formulas found online) created in Desmos
Branding
SYMBOLISM: The symbol element of the Resonique logo references Cymatics and the Chladni plate experiments where sound frequencies are visualised with geometric patterns. A key part of the visual identity was to use the "R" symbol. in various states of vibration, creating a versatile and creative visual language. Combining this with some of the core language take from Nikola Tesla quotes around "ENERGY, FREQUENCY & VIBRATION" formed the backbone of the visual identity.
3D SOUND: In order to best represent the experiential nature of the service and the technological aspect - the 3D sound topography was introduces with an organic 3D representation of sound that was used across brand collateral. I created an animated version of the "sound ball in Blender for use across the website.
TYPOGRAPHY & COLOUR: Whilst the logo type utilised a clean, geometric monoline style that references cutting edge audio brands past and present, the accompanying headline font introduces a bold artistic element to the identity that pairs perfectly with the organic 3D rendering of sound. This is balanced by the use of crisp, sober use of TT Commons as the primary / body font. The monotone palette and careful application of typography maintains the required luxury element to the aesthetic.
WEBSITE
