Portfolio
A selection of work for real businesses, real budgets, and real results
Case Study
The Empty Hearts: From zero to hero
The Empty Hearts needed a logo before the band had settled into any kind of visual identity of its own. Four established players, four very different histories already attached to their names, and a debut record built on fifties rock and roll and sixties garage energy. The brief: something that could hold up on a record sleeve and a T shirt without borrowing from any of their old bands.
Design started at typography, not imagery. Early sketches used bold, condensed lettering, closer to a hand-painted concert bill than a modern logotype. The palette settled on black and a single warm red, no gradients, no secondary colors, just enough contrast to survive a one-color print run on merch. A rounded heart mark was built as a separate icon from the wordmark, so it could scale down to a guitar pick or a patch without losing its shape.
Usage splits in two. The full lockup, wordmark plus heart, runs on the album cover and the website. The heart alone shows up on picks, patches and the drum riser. Same red every time, whether it’s on vinyl, screen printed on a shirt or lit up on a stage backdrop.
