CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST NEW LOGO

THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST turned 26 years old in September, thus it was time to stop using the 25th-anniversary logo that has been in use since September of 2021. I REALLY like that logo, by the way. I should have printed that on a T-shirt, though. Perhaps I still will.

Okay, let’s talk about how our brand spanking new logo came to be. Let’s go back to January 2022. Even then, I was aware that I would eventually have to return to our standard logo in September, but I was also considering doing something radical: replacing the iconic CS logo that we had been using for years, if not decades, with a brand-new one. Funny enough, I flirted with changing the logo a few years ago, which inspired the “retro” logo, which I DID put on a t-shirt but is currently out of stock. It’s one of my favourite designs, actually, but it didn’t really work as the main logo.

Returning to January 2022, I was playing around with the traditional CR logo’s layout and design and came up with this radically new design. The interlaced CS letters remained as you are used to seeing them since I knew I wanted to maintain familiarity but I wanted the entire logo to “pop.” However, if you don’t read the tiny print, the old logo on podcast apps really doesn’t tell you anything about the content of the show. ‘Cinematic Sound’ can refer to a variety of things related to film, not just music. So, after a few hours, I finished the new concept and actually intended to use it until I had a better idea. More on that in a bit. Here is the idea I came up with in January with the old CS logo for comparison.

I also gave several other ideas some thought. These were actually downloaded from Vectorstock for inspiration, however, they came off as extremely bland and far too corporate.

I posted the new concept to Twitter, and got some positive feedback.

I’m just tinkering with some ideas… but I think once we hit our 26th anniversary in September, the tired old CSR logo has to go. The podcast art especially needs some energy! pic.twitter.com/uEIr7RlzSA

— Cinematic Sound Radio Podcast (@cinsoundradio) January 17, 2022

I was pretty much ready to go with it but I still wasn’t 100% committed. There was something about the design that bothered me but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was the new stylized S, which looks more like a snail and it still didn’t communicate ‘film music’ or ‘soundtracks’ without having to read the text below the logo.

I then came to the conclusion that I really wasn’t the right person to re-design the logo. I’m not a designer. Sure, the 25th-anniversary logo looks pretty sweet, if I may say so myself, but that took so many hours of finding the right idea, then sitting down and actually creating it, which I did all in Photoshop, which no real designer does. It was tedious work and took me away from creating new audio content. So, I decided to basically just go back to the old logo.

Skip ahead to July 2002. I’m in Newfoundland on vacation with a ton of time on my hands. I was out for a walk one day with the dog and had the idea of letting a professional create a new logo for me. I know, what a brilliant concept, but I never thought about farming out the re-design. I usually just do everything myself. So, I messaged the best graphic designer I know, someone I’ve known FOR YEARS who I worked with MANY YEARS AGO when I was at beer (dot) com producing their podcast, which was a massive success and is one of my biggest regrets that we couldn’t continue producing it. But I digress.

Back to my former boss and now friend, Rick Brown. He’s a genius, a brilliant artist, a talented musician, extremely funny, and a generous and kind person. I miss hanging out with him. Anyway, he’s a super busy guy, with lots going on in his life, so the prospects of him doing this logo for me was slim. But if he couldn’t do it maybe he could recommend me to someone he might know who would be willing to take a crack at it. So, I reached out, and as I suspected, he was far too busy, which was understandable. He was then going to refer me to a friend of his, but he told me that it would be quite expensive to get the logo redone. I was willing to pay and was considering the options Rick had forwarded to me when, unexpectedly, I received a message from Rick with this attached.

I was blown away. I loved the simplicity of the design. I loved the filmstrip which, as Rick stated, “…connects with the concept of the show.” I also loved that it still looks similar to my original CR logo that I was retiring.

Rick and I chatted online for a few hours. He told me that ever since I contacted him and planted the idea in his head (of a new logo), the possibilities of what could be done kept rolling around in the back of his mind so he thought he would take a crack at it. By the time we were done chatting and going over ideas, he sent me six early concepts, all keeping the look of the classic CS logo but making it different without completely losing the original branding.

I shared the concepts with my patrons and asked them which one they liked. The overwhelming favourites were #1 and #3. Initially, I was leaning towards logo #1 or #6 but once I started playing with both of them on my own, inserting them into different backgrounds and colour schemes, they weren’t really working for me.

The next concept that caught my eye was #3. For some reason, the S in front of the C instead of being attached together looked bold! It just popped! Once I started playing with it, I knew I had found the new logo! You’ll also notice that the logo is now BLACK. The original was this dull blue/grey colour. I tried colourizing this new logo with those old colours and it wasn’t doing anything for me. The black now stands out against the background! Speaking of background, the blue colour of the background has also changed to a lighter shade compared to the old background which was closer to black, than blue.

The logo on the left is just a textless final final rendering of the new CS design.

The version in the centre sticks with the familiar CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST roundel design. That’s for social media and merch!

The one on the right is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. However, you will notice some similarities with my original concept from January. This “neon logo” is going to be used as our podcast artwork. I needed something that would pop when someone was searching through podcasts on their devices! The original logo was dull, and boring and did really tell you much about the show just by looking at it. Now, the S represents FILM and the neon explosion of music notes represents MUSIC. While neon blue is currently the colour we are going with, I can instantly change that background for special occasions.

So, there you have it. The origins of our new logo. I hope you like tit. It’s different but still looks similar to what we’ve been using for decades. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

All the changes to the website and social media accounts have begun and I will begin rolling out new merchandise with the new logos in our TeePublic store next month.

Thanks for reading,

-Erik-

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