Club Above – Project Insight
Theme Used: Responsive Pro by Cyberchimps
Plug-ins Used: Black Studio TinyMCE Widget, Display Widgets, Fast Secure Contact Form
Project Elements: Name Iteration, Logo Creation, Rapidly Deployed Promotion, Street Teams
A former client called and asked if we could design a logo, a website, and some promotional materials in a hurry, because they were opening a club soon. “How soon? Two months? Three?” we asked. “Two or three WEEKS”, they said. WordPress to the rescue! If you know you’re going to make changes down the road, but you need to deploy a website in a hurry, there are few other choices.
Name Iteration & Logos
The club had previously been called “the Club Above”, because it’s located above a restaurant the client owns called “The Heidelberg”. It had a less-than-effective logo, and the client was eager to re-brand. Our first idea: name it after cities north of Heidelberg. Immediately north are Mannheim and Mainz. Further north and much more east are Berlin and Dresden, all workable club names. Second Idea: Use a German word that matches a concept. Some starters:
MODE (fashion, mode, vogue, fad, apparel, fashionwear), ÜBER (over, via, above, across), FEST (festival, feast, party, celebration, festivity, banquet), PROMINENTE (celebrity, prominent figure, vip), TANZEN (dance, hop, spin), POPPIG (pop, trendy, jazzy, mod), ENERGIE (energy, power, vigor, vitality, push, vigour), STERN (star), GAUDI (fun), EKSTASE (ecstasy, frenzy, trance), MODISCH (stylish, fashionable, modish), PARTEI (party), FEIER (celebration, party, ceremony), HAUSEN (live, wreak havoc, hang out), CLUBHAUS (clubhouse)
Third Idea: Copy the name of famous German nightclubs, like Berghain, Tresor, Stattbad, Sisyphos, KitKat.
In the end, the client liked ÜBER, so we did some rapid user testing. DOH! Naturally, everyone under thirty thought the club was stealing from the cab company, a possibility we overlooked in our rush to get the name into the design process. Back to the drawing board! In the end, the choice was… dot ta da da: CLUB ABOVE. So we re-worked the logo rapidly, changing it from this:
to this:
Rapid Promotion
We had just missed a lot of monthly deadlines for media buys and club listings, but the client still wanted to promote. Our solution: street teams and social. We designed and printed a LOT of heavy-stock glossy cards, and even more grayscale flat ones. Note: the grayscale (and less expensive) version proved much more effective.
We also had a lot of fun with social and repurposing of memes:
