Smithsonian Year Of Music

Turning audio into an iconic logomark.

The Smithsonian has the worlds largest music complex. To celebrate, the Smithsonian Year Of Music was envisioned. Spanning an entire year, the cultural institution would program music events highlighting their music label as well as the millions of artifacts that were in their archives. A program this large would need a brand identity that could serve as a touch stone across a wide variety of events, lectures, and exhibitions.

This project was no small endeavor. The Smithsonian is a world renown cultural institution and the Year Of Music called for an iconic mark. After many sketches and executions, I began to think of more conceptual solutions that would rise to the level of the Smithsonian brand and reputation.

Sound waves was certainly a solid idea, but going deeper I wanted some meaning to be embedded in that sound wave. Using a simple voice recorder, I recorded me saying the word “music”. I then took the graphic representation of that sound wave and abstracted it into a simple set of bars that still resembled a sound wave. When I presented this solution to the client, they simply said, “This solution feels very “Smithsonian””. And that was all the validation I needed for this logo creation.