Waterbear: Logo and Poster Design

My best friend Nicholas Griffin came to me for a logo design. Him and a beauti­fully bearded gentleman name Tom Schestak create some crazy noise-infused psyche­delic, minimal, often impro­vi­sa­tional music , going by the name of Waterbear. I approached their logo design with the 1970’s in mind. I wanted to create something that expresses the unpre­dictable, organic nature of their music. Also repre­senting the design approach similar to many music posters I’ve seen through the years and derived hand-drawn type inspi­ration from. The logotype repre­sents the silhouette of a waterbear, though not the most tradi­tionally documented image. I used the image located here as a reference, when constructing the typographic structure. This approach to the logo makes it easily adaptable for posters and album covers. I have also created a custom text-only version of the logo for more universal use. I designed this typeface by hand, crafting it on a paper napkin, scanning it into Photoshop and tracing it in Illus­trator. I then crumpled up the napkin and re-scanned it in. Often designing for musicians can lead to a different “brand” approach per album. Depending on the mentality of the band, some designs can not transcend time and be applied to their entire output of music.

Logo Design For Waterbear:

Logo Design For Waterbear

Nicholas also wanted me to come up with some poster designs for him. Though the following have been designed for shows not yet booked, I wanted to fill in details to show how each design will layout. The first design feels very organic to me, both in color scheme and subtle textures — allowing the logo to be the focal point.

The second design utilizes the regular Waterbear logo, a blood-themed design and supporting text based off a previous poster design but now taken to an extreme. Kind of implying that everyone in atten­dance will die and hoping you’ll be there for it. It’s meant to come across as playful, however extreme it may sound. There is nothing sweet and cuddly about Waterbear or many of their label-mates and I feel these posters put those senti­ments on display.

The third design utilizes the plain custom-text version of the logo and some supporting text has been shuffled to accom­modate the space of the smaller logo.

Poster Design For Waterbear:

Waterbear Poster Design One

Waterbear Poster Design Two

Waterbear Poster Design Three

For more infor­mation on Waterbear please visit their profile on Myspace or their artist page on Anti-Civ Records.