Brian Leach

Design Opportunity

Jackson guitars–high-performance, high-end instruments created for the metal music aficionado–needed a marketing and branding campaign that spoke to both its history as an innovator as well its future. “The Bloodline” was chosen as the moniker for this campaign.

Solution

I developed creative that paid homage to the brand’s history but also spoke with authority about its future and its place as a leader in its own industry. The work developed had to successfully evoke that brand image while maintaining its legitimacy–its consumers demanded “street cred”.

Client

Jackson Guitars (Fender Musical Instruments, Inc.)

Roles

• Branding

• Art direction

• Visual design

• Copy writing

Sections

01 – Introduction
02 – Advertising
03 – The Bloodline Tour
04 – The 30th Anniversary
05 – Merch

The "Bloodline" campaign coincided with the brand's 30th anniversary. I created the visual design by modifying the existing Jackson logo. The brand logo had been in use for over 25 years and had strong recognizability, and we didn't want to tamper with that.

The resulting design was substituted for the existing brand logo in most applications (excepting instruments). This tweak to the existing design was the first element created for the campaign. At the same time, I was also working on a brand centerpiece that could be repurposed or referred to during the branding efforts.

The brand centerpiece took shape as a "dream book", designed in a square format to resemble a vinyl record sleeve. We wanted to evoke some of the enthusiasm a music lover might have for a newly purchased album. The visual impact of record sleeve art is a big part of the format's mystique. Through re-experiencing that mystique of a record sleeve, we hoped the reader would imagine their own journey from music consumer to creator. 

The dream book was designed as an evergreen piece that could be referenced and repurposed throughout the brand campaign. It served as the visual guide for all the work we did during the rebrand, and a reference for other touchpoints.

With the visual direction established, I put together creative to support advertising. Creative used for print (shown here) was used to establish visual direction on digital advertising.

After the initial launch, the brand went "on tour": our product managers visited select Jackson dealers nationwide. At each location was a community event: our staff demo'd product, shared tips and tricks, and provided dealer support and education. These events were often held when a Jackson artist was in town for a show, so artists would sometimes be a part of the experience. I created the visual branding for the tour by expanding the logo into an illustrated element, which we repurposed for tour swag and promotional materials. 

After the rebrand, it was time to turn our attention to creating supporting materials for Jackson's 30th anniversary. I again led creative for this effort. Since we already had visual elements in place, the 30th anniversary work was evolutionary in nature. I again started with the brand logo and tweaked it, creating an illustrative element that was used throughout the campaign. It evolved into promotional graphics, posters, merchandise and instrument graphics (for a line of limited edition guitars).

I also created instrument graphics for a limited-edition line of collector guitars, celebrating the brand's anniversary. One example of the final instruments can be seen at the top of this case study.

No branding campaign is complete without some merchandise, and these too were part of my effort for the Bloodline campaign.