Banker Guitars

A Custom Wordmark For an American Craftsman.

PURPOSE

Banker came to Versed with an interesting challenge. Create an 'ownable' mark for an in-market, sponsored luthier that elevates his brand to match the biggest names in the industry. The updated wordmark needed to retain the vintage Americana feeling of the original off-the-shelf typography, but with improved legibility and visual recall. In addition, the new lettering needed to look high-end when physically applied to the instruments, and visually align when locked up with its sponsor brand, Gibson Guitars.

Lastly, Banker was looking for creative direction on how to use and extend the logo into photography, social campaigns, and merchandise to ensure consistency in brand application.

Services
Brand Strategy
Identity Design
Art Direction
Production Design

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bankerguitars.com

PROCESS

We kicked things off by conducting an exhaustive typographic analysis of full letterforms, as well as specific characters that could represent the Banker 'B'. From there, we moved into letterform sketching, creating 7 primary wordmark concepts with custom, hand-drawn 'B's' to compliment. Next, we down selected to a single look, and went into refined sketching and vectorizing of the type characters. To win the 'hearts and minds' of the Banker team, we created a brand application presentation that represented the mark's use cases across a number of various physical and digital mediums.

We rounded things out by creating a comprehensive Brand Guide, and delivered refined logos for inlay creation, apparel usage, and digital updates.

The more I look at it, the more I love it. I don’t think I fully appreciated how much design work goes into something like creating a font. I have a whole new appreciation for this art form!

Matthew Hughes

Chairman of the Boards, Banker Guitars

PAYOFF

Banker's new identity is now truly commensurate with the quality of custom-built instruments he's known for. We were able to keep some of the same aesthetic sensibilities as the original lettering, without creating something over-stylized or illegible. The logo will be used on future guitar builds, including headstocks, bridges, pick-up stamping, and other instrument applications. In addition, the new logo has been extended in a number of merchandise concepts, including guitar picks, patches, pins, stickers, apparel, cases, and signage. Ultimately, what we're most excited about is that Mr. Banker is happy and equally excited about the new ID and its potential.

Banker Guitars was born out of a love for vintage guitars, and old school American Craftsmanship. Banker works directly with players and artists to create their ultimate guitar.