Recollect Records

Rare, used record shop

Recollect Records unearths the rare albums that collectors spend a lifetime searching for.

Client

Recollect Records

Industries

Record Store

Agency

Ogilvy

Services

Brand Identity

Date

2022

Role

Creative Director
& Lead Designer

Objective

Over the past few years, Recollect has become a destination for renowned DJs, producers and collectors. They needed a new identity to elevate the Recollect brand, stand out in the marketplace, and unite their tribe.

Solution

he Recollect redesign offered an exciting opportunity. For whatever reason, most Denver businesses don’t take big swings when it comes to their design and branding. From restaurants to retail, it’s rare to see a brand identity that takes the risk of really expressing its personality. Perhaps the blandness found in competitive audits scare owners into jumping aboard the bland train. Maybe the vast majority of business owners in this city don’t understand the power of letting your brand’s authentic personality shine. It seems unlikely they'd have a lens into the bold, inspiring world of branding that can be found in cities like Tokyo, New York, Portland, and Copenhagen.
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Fortunately, the owner of Recollect knows that – when it comes to branding – blending in is death, and supported every big swing I threw at him. The result is an expressive and complex, yet clean identity. It is nostalgic (found in the typographic and graphic elements paying homage to historic poster and album designs). It is unifying (music affects us all emotionally, sound affects us all physiologically). And it is functional (the vertical logotype begins with "REC" to encourage proper pronunciation).

An initial sketch of the vertical logotype. Stacking it serves as an indicator of the pronunciation, emphasizing the first syllable. (Rec-o-llect, not Re-collect.)

Brand Identity

Brandmark
‍

Guidelines

Logotypes

Vertical and horizontal logotypes.

Brandmark

Infinitely scalable

A secondary mark was created for 1:1 usages, including social media avatars and platform-agnostic favicons.
‍
Inspired by Peter Behrens (Berlin Electric Works Magazine, 1908), the graphic’s potentially infinite repetition allows for unlimited scalability across any application.

≥ 240px

≥ 148px

≥ 96px

≥ 64px

< 64px

Guidelines

Customized Typography

Visual Language

Applications

Expressing

the Brand

Customized Typography

Nostalgic origins, modernized details

Recollect's principle typeface is Prismaset, a modernized version of the multiline typeface Prisma by Rudolf Koch, released in

Recollect's principle typeface is Prismaset, a modernized version of the multiline typeface Prisma by Rudolf Koch, released in 1930. The typesetting process is custom for each poster, flyer, shirt, etc. Select lines extend and connect with one another, bringing intricacy to the details and cohesion to the message.

1930. The typesetting process is custom for each poster, flyer, shirt, etc. Select lines extend and connect with one another, bringing intricacy to the details and cohesion to the message.

RIGHT

Animation of typographic customization. In this example, 12 letterforms were customized — some more obvious than others.

ABOVE

Posters for in-store events, featuring DJ sets by Da Beatminerz and Large Professor.

Visual Language

Sound affects everyone

Music is emotional. Sound is physiological. We’re made up of 70% water, and sound waves travel quite well through water. When we put on a record, we are embodying the very music that’s playing.

ABOVE

Graphic representations of a sound wave: (A) air at equilibrium, in the absence of a sound wave; (B) compressions and rarefactions that constitute a sound wave; and (C) transverse representation of the wave, showing amplitude (A) and wavelength (λ).

BELOW

How sound waves move through various physical spaces.

Diffraction of sound waves

Wave impinges on a narrow slit

Wave interference

Barrier is longer than the wavelength

Wave impinges on a broad slit

Huygens’ principle

The diffraction of sound around a corner arising from Huygens’ wavelets.
Originating along the fronts of plane waves, wavelets recombine to produce the propagating wave front.

Sunlight

The store-owner and I share a love for the 1978 Herbie Hancock album, Sunlight. If you've ever owned a copy of the LP on vinyl, you'll recognize the redesigned diagram of Herbie's keys and synth setup from the inner sleeve.

ABOVE

Promotional poster for Herbie Hancock’s Sunlight, which hangs near the entrance of the shop.

Applications

Every facet of the brand was thoughtfully crafted to elevate the customer’s experience. Personal business cards feature silver

Daring to
stand out

Daring to stand out

Every facet of the brand was thoughtfully crafted to elevate the customer’s experience. Personal business cards feature silver foil (to match the shop’s interior chrome finishes) on thick black cardstock. While (also silver foiled) contact details wrap around a blind debossed logotype on the back of the general business card. The storefront design was designed with function and balance in mind. The biggest window features an oversized version of the logotype up high, but keeps everything at eye-level empty to give passersby a full view into the shop. Other windows are filled edge-to-edge with cohesive layouts of the somewhat mysterious brand elements to entice visitors.

foil (to match the shop’s interior chrome finishes) on thick black cardstock. While (also silver foiled) contact details wrap around a blind debossed logotype on the back of the general business card. The storefront design was

designed with function and balance in mind. The biggest window features an oversized version of the logotype up high, but keeps everything at eye-level empty to give passersby a full view into the shop. Other windows are filled edge-to-edge with cohesive layouts of the somewhat mysterious brand elements to entice visitors.