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Band logos, anyone?

Curtybob

Curtybob

Jun 2, 2007
1,021
80
50
Jackson, MO
thescatterguns.bandcamp.com
#1
Ok, so... I just took on the job of making a logo for my gigging band. The band's name is 525 (named after the county road the frontman lives on). The original was a picture of the county road sign... the signs here are blue with yellow characters.

I drew out the logo the old fashioned way:

525stoneworklogo.jpg


Then scanned it, and toyed with the levels a bit to make it look "inked" rather than pencil drawn:

525blocklogoblackandwhite.jpg


And finally, I used the brush tool, set to color burn (50% opacity, 100% flow) to add the 2 colors. Then, I just popped it out and put it over a quick gradient.

525blueyellowhomage.jpg


It was a fun project, and now I am in the middle of making a 3' x 4' tall version from 4" styrofoam. I will have that all finish sanded, painted, and ready to go behind the drummer on a stand for our first show, this weekend.

IMG_5026.jpg
 
#7
So, I had my triumphant return to the stage on saturday night, and I brought the foam logo. I had designed it to sit upon 2 straight mic stands, right behind the drummer... but, the stage was tight, so we decided to nix it for this show. The club owner saw it sitting backstage, and brought it out to the floor during the set, and put it in front of the house subs (but wasnt as careful when he set the top on to get it lined up right... lol). This pic was after the show, while we were tearing down.

IMG_5041Large.jpg


This pic is untouched, other than a quick resize. The paint was just weird, and reflected light in a cool way in pics. I painted a basecoat of latex drywall primer, then a coat of white gloss enamel. Then, I busted out the old airbrush from my model building days, and sprayed the chrome yellow and pearl blue acrylic paint, with the black being the final touches.
 
#9
Yeah, it worked great in practice. As soon as the drummer realized he'd set up too far back to use it, he was gonna scoot up... but we only had another 15 minutes to soundcheck.

It is an easy material to work with, even though it is not the most durable stuff around. I only had 4 hours of work invested in that prop, including paint ...I painted 4 coats of heavy primer, incase I decided to go with a solvent-based paint. Almost any solvent will melt the styrofoam.

But yeah... took about 30 minutes to saw out the shape with a drywall saw, another 20 to draw out the details with a magic marker, an hour to "scratch in" all the details and sand the face smooth (just sandpaper... you can get a shiny smooth finish, or stop a little short and get the "stone" look with a heavier grit paper). The rest was paint time (not including drying time... it took a while in between coats of primer).
 
#11
Admittedly, you gotta be careful with it. It's stronger than I would've thought, but not so strong that I'd let just anyone load in or load out. To aid with transportation, I made it in 2 pieces (horizontal split at the middle... hidden in a "block" joint).

My next move is gonna be to mount it on some 3/8" plywood for strength (cut to be hidden, obviously), and to make a more solid way to keep it locked together when it is stacked up.
 
#13
I am a carpenter by trade, and I work around it alot. It is used as a foundation and insulator for a system that goes on the outside of commercial buildings (Dryvit, EIFS, etc...). Usually, our company's plasterers do this stuff, but I have helped here and there when carpentry was slow. That's where I saw how easy it was to work into shape, and I have used it for various things in the past few years. I even used it as a mold to make the fiberglass hoodscoop I have on my computer. lol
 
#14
I like logos that are physical, three-dimensional objects and not just images. One of my singers makes ceramic art stuff, and she put some beads she made into a logo. Not to be outdone, I also made one from freshly picked garlic plants. Those were just temporary ones that we photographed and then disassembled, though. A big styrofoam logo that you can take to gigs is awesome.
 
#17
Curtybob said:
I am a carpenter by trade, and I work around it alot. It is used as a foundation and insulator for a system that goes on the outside of commercial buildings (Dryvit, EIFS, etc...). Usually, our company's plasterers do this stuff, but I have helped here and there when carpentry was slow. That's where I saw how easy it was to work into shape, and I have used it for various things in the past few years. I even used it as a mold to make the fiberglass hoodscoop I have on my computer. lol
Click to expand...
That is so cool I would have never thought of using form for something like this very innovative. You should see if you could patten the idea and sell logos to other bands RTS
 

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