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Record Labels - 7/9/15

Researching Conventions of Record Label Logos

Island Records is a major British record label that operates as a divison of Universal Music Group. It was founded by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Godall and Leslie Kong in Jamaica and has been based in the United Kingdom since 1962. It has been popular since its origin, signing artists such as Bob Marley, U2, Amy Winehouse, Demi Levato and more Justin Bieber. Partially due to the labels significant and outstanding legacy it keeps, it remains UMG's pre-eminent record labels, as of 2014, three island brands will exist, Island UK, US and Australia. There is many different genres that the company promotes and has a wide variety of artists in order to keep a universal persona. This ranges from reggae, to soul, pop, alternative, rock and more. The logo, being a black and white colour with a stand alone palm tree in the centre above the words 'ISLAND', which is in an upper casing coloured in black, making it stand out to the audience. It represents an aspect of an actual island and gives off a summer feeling, connoting happiness and joy which is obviously what every record label would want in order to gain an audience and for people to enjoy the artists music in order to make money and be successful. The simple black and white format adds a simple, classic feeling to match their long history and overall is very aesthetically appealing. Sometimes all it is about it Quality than Quantity. 

Atlantic Records is a major American record label that is best known for it's numerous recordings of blues, rock and roll, jazz and hip hop that was founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Since it's start, it has managed to gain a whole range of popular artists including Bruno Mars, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Ed Sheeran, Skrillex and more. Over it's first 20 years of operation, Atlantic has become one of the most important American Record Labels to date specializing in jazz, RNB and Soul with artist like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles promoting african-american talent across musical platforms. The logo keeps that simple look similar to other record label logos in order to keep a certain aesthetic and not overload the logo to divert the audiences attention. It goes for a red and white colour scheme that is quite bright to the naked eye making it eye catching. The 'A' in Atlantic is styled in a unique way with the cross in the A underlining the rest of the word, making it aesthetically pleasing. It also matches the genre of music it promotes with looking very classy and chilled, going along with that soul, jazz musical feel which therefore helps the world know what music it is set to put out there. 

Universal Music Group is one of the biggest and most world renown record labels in the world to date, based over in the USA and was founded in 1934 by Jimmy Lovine. It's so well known because of the hundreds of popular artist that has signed to the label in order to make successful music. It has helped promote such artists as Avicci, Take That, Gary Barlow, Bastille, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, Jessie J and more in a wide use of platforms and conventions. One major way it has done this is by being the creator of the online music format VEVO, which broadcasts a wide variety of artists music videos on social mediums such as YouTube and Vimeo, gaining a huge amount of online views and subscribers from around the online world. The logo in itself is very simple and minimalistic, offering the audience with a basic black and white colour scheme, which connotes a as said 'simplicity' to the logo and the company itself, that it is what it is. The logo also infers a worldwide appeal to all audiences with through their infamous image of the earth, which gives all audiences a sense of familiarity due to their well known film studio opening introduction before a movie starts. So overall, it is a very popular record and logo. 

Cash Money Records Inc. is an American record label founded by brothers Bryan 'Birdman' Williams and Ronald 'Slim' Williams in 1991 who currently act as it's CEO's. It's most promotes the genre of rap/hiphop with a range of popular rap artists that are signed onto the label. Bryan Williams stated "It was to get us out of projects and into a positive way of life. And we wanted to help other people get out of this poverty". Saying that black people were too unheard of in the music industry. Artists such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Tyga and Birdman himself are signed on to the label and are popular household names in themselves. Instantly from the logos design, you can tell that the record label itself promotes the genre of rap. We see the American Dollar sign predominant in the middle of the image, which we see alot of in the world of rap, connoting money, richness, and a sort of egotistical vibe. The shiny/sparkly effect on the logo and titles adds to the aesthetic of image and adds to that richness affect. The font is in upper casing with the top line curving around the top of the $ sign, then 'records' at the bottom going straight along to give it effect and it's own unique style, putting emphasis on the fact it is a record label. Rap songs are usually associated with the topic of money and getting rich, and the title itself 'Cash Money' emphasises that stereotype the media and worldwide audiences percieve it as. From the logo itself we as a audience can see why it is so reknown for promoting and advertising the world of rap and hip hop. 

 

Motown is an American record label that was founded by Berry Gordy Jr in 1959. It promotes the genres of a type of soul music with a distinct pop influence, with a whole range of recogniseable and iconic figures signed onto the label or who were signed onto it. Such as the late Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes and many more. It played an important role in racial integration of popular music as an African-American owned record label which achieved significant crossover success. During the 1960s, Motown achieved massive success for a small company by getting 79 records in the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 record chart between 1960 and 1969. The logos design portrays a simple design with three black diagonal lines in the shape of the letter M, with the Motown written underneath in upper casing and black bold writing in order to be seen easily. The basic black and white colours gives off a classy vibe and suits the whole aroma of the record label itself, laidback, chilled and filled with positivity and good music. The logo and the prowess of the company has made the company one of the most popular and well known to date for soul music, with the audience instantly recognising the company and it's beliefs by looking at the logo and the hearing the name itself. 

 

Creation and Evaluation of our Record Label Logo - 16/9/15

Rent Boi Records is our collectively agreed record label name and logo that can be seen. We designed this logo on Corel Draw and we managed to create it with ease as we knew exactly what we wanted before we created one. It depicts the animal of a sloth wearing headphones in the colour black and white, with the name of the label separated between the top and bottom. The black and white colour scheme makes the logo more sophisticated and classy looking, which we thought would be a good idea considering in most of our research on popular record label logos, most of them were in that colour scheme. The reasoning for the name 'Rent Boi Records' is simply because when my group do group activites at Sixth Form we use that name find it humourous when also making other people enjoy the name. Overall, we thought we'd stick to our usual name as it flows well with 'Records' at the end. Using an animal as our main feature isn't exactly the most unique of an idea, but a sloth in itself is different to a certain popular animal like a lion etc. The sloth possesses a persona of chilled, laidback and care free, with also adding a bit of humour towards the cause. We as a group wanted that laidback feeling to be a key aspect to what our record label is all about, so whenever people listen to our songs we promote, they feel content and happy in themselves. The cable coming out of the headphones gives a certain fluency to the logo and adds a unique aesthetic to the image. The genre we are promoting from our record label is the genre of pop/hip hop which we thought the headphone aspect of the logo connotes that particular genre and the fun, catchy tune their songs normally possess. We also noticed the amount of props pop videos use, so we thought we could have fun with our own props for our mise-en-scene and create something unique and intriguing for our target audience. Then when it comes to the artist we have chosen to do for our lip sync video,  the conventions their songs possess relates well with out intentions as a record label and what we want to produce in the future. 

 

Overall we think our record label logo is successful and promotes the genre and our philosphy of working well. We want to be serious about our work but also at the same time have fun along the way, to just make people enjoy what we put out. 

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