Its 2016 and we're just about to set off on our first visit to Dublin. The band name had recently changed to U2Baby to reflect the move to a four piece and to make the, clever but not that obvious, name of Act2Baby more accessible to U2 fans and identify us immediately as a tribute to the music of U2.
With this trip in mind we set about designing a new logo for U2Baby, one that would work in all formats, on the web, tshirts, Facebook profile image etc... Simplicity was the key and in the end a square layout was decided upon rather than a longer horizontal layout. After several iterations we settled on a very simple design; U2 in black with BABY in grey underneath. It served the purpose well and tests in various places worked well. We settled on this.
So we set about using this basic logo on posters, websites and social media. Economy Edge decided he wanted the logo on his Vox AC30 flight cases and set about making a stencil. This would be useful not only for identifying our kit at festivals, but for branding at gigs as we used the flight case as a base for U2D2 (our technical rack of guitar fx, vocal fx and show control).
Stencil
Ready for a spray of white paint
And so with the new branding on the kit we set about doing some gigs....
Fast forward a couple of months and one night we were looking at the logo on the flightcase. It had become completely road worn from being loaded in and out of the band van. Scrapes and scratches had appeared all over it... chunks were even removed.... but wow did it look cool! A logo that had been #designedbynature. We decided then and there to grab a photo of it and look to turn this into the actual logo. The original photo of the logo is shown below.
Next step was to use this as a basis of our branding for U2Baby. We decided we liked the grungy look and would incorporate it on our website, posters, videos and have a new backdrop made featuring the design. Red chevrons harking back to "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" really made the logo "pop".
The backdrop in all it's glory at the Globe in Cardiff
We really love the logo and the brand image it has created for us as a U2 tribute band. We hope you do too.
Please follow us on Facebook (fb.com/theu2tributeuk) or Twitter (twitter.com/theu2tributeuk) and check out our gig diary via the Tour page. It would be great to see you at a gig soon (see Tour).
