Record Label Research

Key (left to right):
Island, Def Jam, Universal, YMCMB (Cash Money Records), Back to Back, Lockin' Out, Death Row, Purgatory, Run for Cover, Topshelf, Revelation and React! Records. 

This is a collection of record label's logos which are used within their releases and merchandise. A logo from any institution is a critical part of their image as it shows their style of music and their degree of professionalism. Logos often show the image of their name of the company within them (see Death Row Records), this is to make their potential audience more familiar with the label.

The image above shows both independent and major record labels, varying in audience size. Their genres also differ from pop, hip-hop, alternative and hardcore punk; this gives an insight towards how a lot of record labels have similarities in the way that they promote themselves. Although genre does not necessarily have a huge impact on how professional an institution wishes to look, smaller independent labels often have a less conventional logo. An example of this is the distinction between the label shown on the bottom row, Topshelf Records compared to Island Records. Island are a very large independent label that have released music from famous bands worldwide, as to Topshelf who have only released music from bands in North America and England. Although Topshelf are very big in their emo/alternative-punk genre, their logo uses excessive lettering and the image of a speech bubble. This gives the viewer a lot of shapes to focus their eyes on which makes it less recognizable than a simple circle with a tree that Island's logo uses. This makes it very convenient to place on record and CD releases on the front or back cover as apposed to a large speech bubble with unconventional lettering.

In the top right corner, there is Universal Records which are one of the three major labels (along with Warner and Sony). As they are one of the largest conglomerates in terms of the music industry, they use a logo which is very familiar with most of the general public as it features on the films that they produce. The logo also uses synergy to relate to the word which is used as their title (universal meaning worldwide). This makes it very basic, yet very easy to recognize. It is a noticeable asset that the larger record labels often use a minimalistic approach when designing their logos as they do not feel that they need a large amount of imagery to display their company.

Independent labels can vary in size, yet their audience size is fairly easy to determine through their logos. Although most record labels use simple designs within their logo regardless of genre (see React! Records for hardcore and Cash Money for hip-hop), there are some which use larger logos which include images to be distinctive against others. This can prove to be successful, although often inconvenient, to labels to gain recognition. It may not work for smaller genres however (see Neutral Words Records), yet with some larger ones (Back to Back and Death Row), they can gain a recognizable image.