The Recording Academy

Good vibrations

Creating a unified look and feel for the world's leading society of music professionals

Challenge

Although best known for the GRAMMY Awards, the Recording Academy has a much broader role in advancing artistic and technical excellence and working to ensure a vital and free creative environment. Throughout its history, the Recording Academy has established itself as the leading arts advocacy and outreach organization in the United States. However, the brand wasn’t representing this unique role—there was a disconnect between the organization’s values and how they came to life through the brand.

Insight

For six decades, the Recording Academy’s growing portfolio of programs and initiatives led to an unstructured use of its logos and an inconsistent brand image. Our research uncovered that the Recording Academy’s previous identity did not reflect the totality of its mission. Audiences weren’t clear about all that the Academy represents or the breadth of philanthropic work it does in the music industry.

Answer

We gave a new lease of life to the brand through a process of refreshing the visual identity, building more equity into the main brand and creating connectivity across the Recording Academy’s portfolio. The new logo elevates the Academy’s visual presence as it evolves to serve new generations of music creators and fans.

By introducing color and rendering the gramophone in both static and animated form, the new logo illustrates the variety of music genres and music creators the Recording Academy advocates on behalf of. In its pure graphic form, the gramophone remains the core identifier for the GRAMMY Awards and the Recording Academy's programs. When animated, the logotype adapts the width of its letters to the sound and rhythm of the music it's paired with. The gramophone's various renderings serve as the foundation for a modern visual identity that is as dynamic as the music it is designed to represent.

Results

With Siegel+Gale, we created a unified look and feel, centered on our trademark gramophone icon to give a visual through line that helps identify and distinguish Academy-related programs and activities. We couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

Evan Greene, Former CMO, Recording Academy

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