Pierre O’Reilly is an Irish Composer for Motion Picture, half of the electronica group ‘R’, Producer with the Live Film Orchestra and the recipient of the Royal College of Music’s Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medal 2013. I have worked on many of Pierres’ solo musical projects, Uba’s Story, Pictures of an Exhibition and Patrick – The Story to name but a few, and was delighted when he contacted me to do some design work for his own branding needs.
The brief, was to create a logotype for Pierre that was individual in style, to be used across his website and social media touch points. In addition, ‘Music for eMotion’ a tagline he used previously in an animation was to be included. ‘Motion’ representing the area of the industry he works in and ‘Emotion’ describing what his work aims to effect when listened to.
Our usual method of working together starts with a chat on where and how the identity is to be used, type, colours etc. I started with his name collated in a list of a few dozen fonts to see how certain elements like spacing, how the individual letters related to one another, capitals versus upper and lower case and finally, how his christian name and surname – separated by the O’ – worked together. We both emailed comments and ideas back and forth discussing what looked the most appropriate letterforms completing phase 1 once Pierre chose his favourite.
Next I looked at certain techniques in treating the letters so that they would have some form of individuality when representing Pierre.
Keeping the structure of the name legible and balanced I opted for deconstructing the individual letters knowing the human eye will understand and reconstruct them when being read. A small nod to the listeners response of ‘completing the musical picture’ proffered by the composer.
In the meantime, I addressed the tagline, tinting the ‘e’ as used previously, to be the hidden twist on the type of work he does while adding the ‘rising O’ to represent what Pierres’ work aims to do by ‘elevating the emotions’ of his audience.
The final solution, retains the individuality he requested while remaining legible to viewers when displayed in different positions across multiple devices. The colour gradients’ role as part of the visual identity, is to be a vibrant counterpoint, fluid – in terms of its shape and what space is available, for the name and tagline to be read on.