Tuned Up - Branding and Web Design

My friend Wes Black and I were commissioned to work on overhauling the I Am Tuned Up music blog in 2014. They had been using a standard WordPress theme, and needed more customization than it allowed to fit their needs, along with a design that improved readability and focused on readers. As a part of the website redesign project, I proposed modifying the existing branding to help build name recognition within the crowded music blog universe, where visitors are generally briefly engaged when their work or favorite artists are mentioned.

Working under high constraints, I am thrilled with how the modifications to the mark came together. The original mark for I Am Tuned Up was a minimal character with headphones on a guitar pick, and we took that and transformed it into something that holds strong representation to their unique take, and stands out as a mark. Ryan, the founder, battles significant hearing loss in one ear. Being the positive, ambitious guy he is, Ryan says this experience has given him a unique appreciation of music and a perspective that is more akin to the general listener compared to others in his industry (who can easily be compared to wine tasters). The lack of symmetry and unbalanced nature of the mark subtly reflects this story, while remaining true to the original mark. We also recommended the name change across their branding to a simpler "Tuned Up"

(I am especially pleased with the TU monogram within the mark.)