Who is Gladius James?
New Zealand singer/songwriter Gladius James got his start as a producer, writing for other artists after moving to Los Angeles from Auckland in 2015.
Born James Wong, his early songwriting credits include Justin Bieber's "Company," Demi Lovato's "You Don't Do It for Me Anymore," and more from artists like Olivia Holt, Sage the Gemini, Bebe Rexha, and Fifth Harmony. He branched out on his own in 2017, debuting an R&B-influenced sound on first single "Too Bad," which was included on his 2018 Revelation EP (Island Records). The EP also included the singles "We All Got Issues" and "Rich," the latter of which featured an appearance by Wiz Khalifa.
Project Brief
Create a brand identity for musician Gladius James, including logo album and single covers.
Phase 1
Logo Explorations
First step in the process is always the most exciting one. I’ve spent a few days coming up with as many logo concepts and possibilities as possible. Some marks were very organic in nature some a lot more sharp and geometric.
The overall direction that I got from the client was that the logo was supposed to represent both the inner darkness and light from within. Gladius is a short sword that was used in Ancient Rome by gladiators during close-quarter combat.
With those concepts in mind I set out to create a logo that represented both the sword, the shield, and the light. Some explorations included laurel wreaths, crowns, and symbols, inspired by the Roman numerals.
Phase 2
Mid-Fidelity Concepts
The next step was to scan and clean up the explorations, organizing them into categories. Grouping logos by concept makes it easier to eliminate options that are either too similar in execution or not as strong conceptually.
After several rounds of reviews, the final concept has been chosen by the client.
A letter “G” that stands for Gladius and resembles the gladius sword, has been chosen as the runner up.
Phase 3
High-Fidelity Logo
Once the final direction was chosen, the next step was to flesh out the concept and create a high fidelity logo. Several elements make up the final version of the Gladius logo. The box around the letter “G” creates a protective “shield of light”, complimented by the use of negative space symbolizing the inner darkness, penetrated by the “sword of light” to unleash the spiritual warrior within.
The font that was chosen for Gladius resembled a font used in the movie Gladiator, a bold, classic look went well together with a very sharp and geometric logo
Phase 4
