Occasionally a project comes along that ticks all of the boxes. Harkive was one such project. I am always excited when my creative passions get to collide, so being able to undertake a design problem that fell into the music category was always going to be a joy for me to work on, especially following hot on the heels of my own academic studies. Harkive had grown exponentially in its first year and needed a smart and robust identity to cope with its new found audience, and one that encapsulated the project's intentions in a single snapshot. I was tasked with creating a brand that could straddle the cool, image conscious music press, whilst remaining restrained and understated enough for academia.

I developed a simplistic, restrained brand identity that utilised a flat design aesthetic, relying on a simple geometric representation of a stack of vinyl records that doubled as a padlock to play on the 'archive' element of the name. Uncomplicated typography gives the logo and its accompanying assets a timeless feel so that it could be used in subsequent studies going forward. Harkive has continued to grow each year and the brand has become a central part of Harkive Day each summer.