Abbey Road Studios reveals new visual identity by Form
Abbey Road Studios has unveiled a new visual brand identity ahead of plans to announce a number of new initiatives and partnerships to meet the changing needs of the music industry.
Abbey Road commissioned Form in December 2014 to help with its repositioning strategy and to create a new visual brand identity to connect with a wider audience and showcase its offering of catalogue archiving and audio products, services it offers alongside its well-known mastering suites.
Form introduced a new branding hierarchy to allow development of future initiatives, and did this by differentiating Abbey Road from Abbey Road Studios.
Abbey Road now sits as the parent brand at the top of the hierarchy, Abbey Road Studios, the physical embodiment has become a newly defined sub brand, as does the new education wing Abbey Road Institute.
The new branding takes inspiration from the zebra crossing outside the studios which famously featured on The Beatle’s Abbey Road album in 1969.
The parent and sub brand logos are based around one black stripe moving across a three dimensional plane to form a directional arrow or chevron. It points North West indicating Abbey Road Studios’ location within London and is also gives a nod to the parquet flooring prevalent throughout the recording studio complex.
As the logo becomes better known, the chevron shape will develop to be used as a container for other imagery as well as moving image.
Form also commissioned graphic artist Patrick Thomas to create a series of patterns which re-interpret and re-imagine the black and white stripes of the zebra crossing and which also feature the chevron and the new red sub-brand colour, which will be used across all communications.