Classical Business Identity System
Hutchins and Rea is a well established and globally known fine edition sheet music company. After maintaining status quo for several years, partner Bill Rea decided it was time to grow the business and revitalize its brand. Rea initially approached Matter to design new print collateral and website. In the course of research and exploratory conversation, Matter discovered that what was really needed was a comprehensive unified identity system that would empower Hutchins and Rea to express itself consistently and differentiate itself in a confused jumble of music industry product and service companies.
Working collaboratively, Rea and Matter defined a few important requirements of the new identity: it should be relatively modern in appearance so as to be distinct from the tired imagery used in classical music marketing; it should suggest sheet music as opposed to musical istruments or other types of music companies. Finally, Matter suggested the constraint that typical musical imagery should be avoided altogether, as the visual vocabulary of music was so ubiquitous in music marketing as to have lost all meaning in the context of a strategy to be distinct.
Through an iterative exploratory process, Matter found its way out of the territory of familiar music symbolism and resolved a mark that evokes what Hutchins and Rea is really about. The result is clean, modern typography and a mark that unto itself is a distinct and interesting geometric shape. But there are a few surpirses for the attentive:
Matter realized that the context in which people actually use Hutchins and Rea products is as they are playing the music the pages contain, with the sheets open on a stand in front of them. In that context of use was the essence of an appropriate mark. The shape suggests open pages; the offset distance above the Hutchins & Rea logotype suggests pages as they might be seen on a raised music stand. And as a deliberate wink to their original constraint and to the careful observer, the mark contains the reverse shape of a quarter note with its staff descending.
Matter formalized the identity standards in a comprehensive style guide and provided direction to its application in print collateral and on the web.
“Working with Matter over the course of the past few years has been one of the most positive and rewarding experiences that our company has ever had. The results of our brand identity challenge orchestrated by the Matter team have been nothing short of miraculous. They offered an abundance of time and expertise, and showed a genuine interest in our company and what we wanted to achieve. The process was not only educational and enjoyable for us but the results were beyond our expectations. I cannot say enough about this group of highly skilled, smart, and artistically creative professionals. I recommend them without hesitation!” – Bill Rea, President – Hutchins & Rea
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