• Client: OJOLO, a world beat trio located in Northern California.

I know Ojolo (see video below) since some years, and their music is right up my alley – a warm, danceable world beat, produced with mainly African drums, looped guitar and didgeridoo. A combination of tribal and modern, visionary (wings) and with an earthy/electronic rhythm (loudspeakers). The band is on a mission, so the speakers are out-facing. They are three in number, like the members of the band. The band is full of light and positivity, so the sun was a natural choice. But it’s not a sun to relax in – it’s a sun full of energy, it’s a tribal, edgy sun! I looked for a sun tattoo design, and after trying a few, realised I have to design Ojolo’s own sun tattoo. I found the wings in a photo of the band from several years ago, where they appeared as fantasy 3D objects. I scanned and flattened them, integrated with the main text and duplicated their design style over the other parts of the design.

Process: I integrated ideas contributed by the three members of the band; Sometimes, the designer’s job is uncovering the common core of different visions. After about 10-15 iterations of different directions, I thought I had a winner. One sign of a winning design is that the design design could be used in different variations without losing its power. One variant could be used for shirts, another for an album cover, even sprayed through a stencil on sound equipment cases.  Another sign of a good logo design is that while essentially innovating, it must show some continuity with previous logos just like albums of the same band, when successful, project a developing evolution.