7WALLACE - DANCE SERIES BRANDALBUM ART
DIRECTION X DESIGN
CASE STUDY
©PANCHAL X 7WALLACE
THE CHALLENGE
7Wallace is an independent record label founded by actor and artist Idris Elba. After 4 years of their dance series brand, which was beginning to lack consistency, it was time to refresh the identity through its album art.
Something catered more to the edgier and bolder brand 7Wallace had become; adding emphasis to its name and what it was trying to do - putting great talent in the spotlight they deserved.
DELIVERABLES
Album Art
Marketing Assets
Animation
Post Production
THE STORY
Launched back in 2015, 7Wallace is an independent record label founded by Idris Elba, with the aim of breaking boundaries in the dance and hip-hop music scene. Since then, the company has expanded to include music publishing, in a joint venture with Universal Music Publishing, and has also set up studios in Central London and Oxford.
After 4 years of establishing a dance series brand within the genre, their visuals of the series slowly begun to take different phases and ultimately grew to become inconsistent in style. The label had begun to grow in popularity and attract bigger artists which would mean more publicity and eyes on their dance series brand in general.
This pushed the decision that it was time to reposition the series and give it an iconic brand identity that could be adapted throughout while still feeling unique to each release.
The toughest part was understanding exactly who 7Wallace now was as a brand, and how they wished to be perceived. The discovery throughout this project was also an exercise in understanding exactly how they want to be seen. Starting initially with multiple mood boards to analyse what’s in the market, what they have been putting out, and what their thoughts are, then listening through all existing and the new set of upcoming dance releases that this newly branded series will be launched on, to understand the vibe and how it could be expressed visually based on what research we had on hand.
Next, we highlighted key preferred visual aspects along with the use of descriptive words that we could all relate back to when assessing whether or not the new artwork would fit in-line with the brand, these were; iconic, moody, and abstract. With all notes in place, it was time to begin conceptualising; we sketched out a few routes, however decided to focus on 3 concepts that delivered the key words from different angles; from creating a physical feel to digital music to a teaser approach using patterns and textures.
THE RESULT
We rebranded the 7Wallace dance series of artwork, from its styling and brand placement to visual language, while developing the idea of symmetry that was explored in its earlier releases, however with the aim of developing it into unique pieces of art, expressing the music in a composition that would grow to become iconic as the series expanded.
Each piece would be led by the emotion of the track, and be illuminated by light referencing “the spotlight” of the artist whose track it was from. This aimed to visually portray the vibe of the music inspired by it, while staying true to elevating new up and coming talent through the 7Wallace label. Along with the digital album art, we created supporting marketing assets to help promote the releases in a consistent roll-out, as well as developed custom hypnotic-style looped animation that brought the pieces to life. All assets were used across YouTube, Spotify Canvas Art, Apple Music and social media channels - finally giving the 7Wallace dance series the iconic cohesive look they had always envisioned.
DIGITAL ART
The series was received well through new and regular fans over social media, and has slowly become a known visual identity for the series in the market. The newly branded series has received over 12.1 million streams on Spotify alone, and 24k views on YouTube (and counting); this along with the label’s other successes have shown proof in their aim to take this genre and their brand seriously; being a genuine home of great talent.
WE'RE NOT AFRAID TO CALL THEM ART.
THE IMPACT
with over twelve million streams and counting, this series has become a success for the label as well as an established brand in the genre.
12.1 million
streams on Spotify (and counting)
24,047
YouTube views (and counting)
Working on a special release or require brand expertise on a series of music that needs to tap into a certain market clearly?
