UTMG Branding Project
A couple of months back our talented friend Chris Steblay of the Seeworthy Project contacted us to help with a branding project for his friend Jordan Valerde’s company Uncle Toad’s Media Group (UTMG). Chris has been working as Associate Producer with Jordan, Producer, for the last couple of years behind the scenes to produce the live broadcast for the prestigious and legendary Triple Crown of Surfing. Yes folks, you can thank the fellas at UTMG for allowing all of us who weren’t lucky enough to head off to Hawaii this winter to still watch the excitement at the North Shore (air-five John John Florence) on our computers and tvs at home. Before the boys of UTMG hopped on a jetplane off to Hawaii they wanted to get the UTMG branding down in stone. This is where Hoodzpah came in.
After going over ideas and inspiration boards with Jordan and Chris, we had a pretty good idea of what Jordan wanted: A classic and timeless logo that is gritty yet clean and old-school yet modern – all at once. Even though UTMG are heavily involved in the surf industry and the action sports industries, they wanted to have a brand that stood out from the crowd. They also didn’t want their logo to box them into the action sports industries since they also produce and are involved in a slew of other Hollywood projects. So we ruled out any sort of wave in the logo from day one.
We started out incorporating a toad in a big way in the logo, but began to move towards a text based solution that focused on a unique font in an interesting but clean layout. We ended up re-incorporating the toad in a small way that just referenced back to the brand name. The result is as you see it above – a clean, classic logo that is relevant to today but still harkens and pays homage to vintage design. A logo worthy of such a creative and talented company!
Surfline recently did a nice little photo essay called Lights, Camera, Action on Jordan, Chris, Drew and the rest of the boys behind the scenes at this years Vans Triple Crown. Check it out here. Scroll down to see a couple of the logo mockups that didn’t quite make the cut. You can also watch the Triple Crown of Surfing at your own leisure over at VansTripleCrownofSurfing.com and catch all the heats you missed.
