by MarkLives (@marklives) Virgin Radio tasked South Africa’s The Jupiter Drawing Room (Cape Town) to create a new visual identity for the parent company, Virgin Radio International, and its 14 radio stations around the globe. The new identity is intended to drive brand development, work across multiple types of media, and amplify the unique personality of each individual regional station.
We asked creative director, Joanne Thomas, for an overview on the challenges and processes employed by the agency on the Virgin Radio business.
The challenge
To use a combination of traditional and digital media to visually represent a radio station that is ‘Always Listening out for You’. To try to make sound visible.
Our thinking
It’s a mistake to think sound is confined to only one of our senses.
Sound is movement
Waves travelling through the air
Causing particles to collide
One particle moves the next,
moves the next
moves the next
Until they move us
We hear
We feel
We react
We respond — sending our own ‘waves’ back
The solution
We wanted to use cymatics to visualise sound. Cymatics is the study of sound and vibration made visible through patterns that are formed when a sound frequency is introduced to a medium like water or fine grains of salt and sand.
We wanted to apply this technique but using the Virgin Radio star as the central point — and see how different frequencies would affect the star shape.
We worked closely with Rob Brinkworth of Resonate Audio, who took this project on in a truly passionate way, researching different aspects of cymatics and creating the equipment needed to create the experiments.
Once these elements were in place, he then set about creating and editing a series of different frequencies that would be used once the shooting process started. The experiments were shot over the course of several days. Each frequency resulting in its own unique pattern (often met with audible signs of amazement from the team overseeing the project.)
Gavin Coetzee and Gerhard Pretorius captured the process, either as a series of stills or on video, so that all the footage could be used, not only by Jupiter for the creation of the motherbrand identity, but as further inspiration by agencies rolling out the identity across the globe.
It was a simple visual analogy: the star represents a Virgin radio station, the sound frequency is the input from the listeners, and the resulting pattern is the station’s individual broadcasting style.
This is how it rolled out…
The V-Radio font
Inspired by the Virgin star’s rounded points, we designed a unique brand font. The letters A and V each use the exact curve found on the bottom of the star. The other letters were rounded and crafted to echo the simple and elegant curves found within the logo.
Virgin Radio International identity
Black and white photos of the experiments were used to across the identity for the parent brand, Virgin Radio International.
So much of the magic of the process could have been lost with classic printed elements, so as much as possible the team wanted to add motion and interactivity to the elements.
To do this, the business cards used an AR app to bring the logo to life on the cards – revealing a cymatic experiment in process. Footage of the moving cymatic pattern inspired the creation of unique animated GIF email signatures.
Virgin Radio regional logos
To ensure each region fits into the parent brand, but still retains its own unique personality, styled graphic interpretations of cymatic patterns were created using colours drawn from each regions national flag.
Website
To make the brand responsive and give the feeling that it’s ‘Always Listening Out for You’, we created an interactive website.
The site features bold, graphic interpretations of the cymatics, the Virgin Radio logo, and its visual identity. As users navigate the site, it responds dynamically to their mouse cursor’s or finger’s movement, affecting the shape and colours of the cymatic patterns.
To enhance the site experience further, these are amplified with sound pertinent to each region. The original black and white cymatics footage was used for the parent brand, Virgin Radio International, while each regional station is represented by unique graphic versions of the cymatic patterns and colours inspired by their national flags.
For the building of the site, the development team from Jam Donut created unique CMS panels that gave the Jupiter design team the freedom to create each station’s unique look and feel without having to be specialists in coding.
Virgin Radio UK launch
The roll-out of the identity came to life with the recent re-launch of Virgin Radio UK. Using the new identity as their striating point – UK based design agency, Lionheart used cymatic patterns to amplify the Virgin Radio logo on trains, billboards, posters, and the Virgin Radio App’s live streaming interface.
Credits
Agency: The Jupiter Drawing Room (Cape Town)
Designer: Alwine Nolte
Executive creative director: Joanne Thomas
Animators: Alwine Nolte, Altus Brandt, Jo Thomas
Writers: Lynette Lawley-Day, Ayesha Daniels
Account management: Cait Edgecombe, Jane Rowlinson, Alison Pegg
Production managment: Susann Kompa, Julie Gardiner
Sound design and cymatic engineering: Rob Brinkworth, Resonate Audio
Digital agency: Jamdonut
Web development: James Gray, Nikki Burchell, Ben-Piet O’Callaghan
Cinematography and photography: Gavin Coetzee and Gerhard Pretorius
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