Client

The client is the innovation strategy agency ‘Board of Innovation’.

Based in Singapore, New York City, Amsterdam and Antwerp, they stand out through a slightly rebellious, future-oriented approach to solving business challenges.

Step 1. Request

Create a sonic brand consisting of both an audio logo and a related, multi-purpose backing track.

The sonic logo needs to complement and enhance the idea behind a newly developed animated visual logo.

The backing track needs to incorporate and extend the main features of the sonic logo and should be usable as a sonic backdrop during webinars, podcasts, explainer videos, etc.

Step 2. Mood boards

One core idea of Board of Innovation is that our lives are transformed continuously throughout a never ending stream of innovations. Hence, the idea of the (nearby) future as something completely different and totally unrecognisable is unrealistic. At all times, the backdrop to our lives is characterised by the old and the new going side by side.

Project Echo used this inspiring idea in combination with the rebellious nature of Board of Innovation to develop a musical moodboard. One important element of the moodboard is a set word associations in which each word is linked with a ‘possible musical translation’.

• rebellious: controlled and warm distortions, unconventional mix of sounds,

• futuristic: soundscaping, trip hop, Bladerunner, Vangelis, big synthesizer sounds,

• contemplative: trip hop, down tempo,

• searching: down tempo, continuously driving groove,

• innovative: unconventional mix of sounds,

• overview: big hall reverbs and slow tempo,

• majestic: big hall reverbs and dito synthesizer sounds,

• mystique: big reverbs in combination with sounds that are rather close,

• warm: organic elements, real instruments,

• drive: trip hop, groove,

• out of the box: interesting blend of instruments (e.g. Santur and Moog synthesizer), etc.

Another element is a list of photos or videos that capture the mood of the music we envision.

Step 3. Demo iterations
(feedback and refinement) 

Next, in a small window of time, we created several demos that were very different, yet all musically in line with the conceptual universe of the mood board.

Both the client and us immediately felt one demo clearly stood out. 

However, after some discussion, we also agreed the winning demo should be extended with some musical elements from one of the other demos and that some filtering effects and distortions in certain passages should be tamed a bit.

Step 4. Result