NIGHTFALL DISTRICT
Visual Identity
Brand Identity
Album Cover Design
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Nightfall District, also known as Faith Coello, is an independent producer and singer-songwriter in the EDM/Lo-Fi genre. Her uniquely produced albums read like books, each song acting as chapters in a story, hence the term, "storyteller Lo-Fi" she uses to describe her style. Faith desires for her music to be a home where everyone from all backgrounds are welcome. ​
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Project Goals: ​
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Create brand strategy for an independent musician in two heavily saturated music genres
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Craft a visual identity for someone who promotes to people who may need accessibility modes
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Combine all aspects of brand and create an album cover for a new release
Drafting, Drafting, Drafting
Nightfall District began with a flurry of drafts. I knew that the Lo-Fi genre and EDM genre had a lot of motifs, anything from purples and pinks to black and blues as well as items like telephones, cityscapes, and moons.
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I started with hitting the idea on the nose. I drafted several moons to represent nighttime and also night fall and further, "moonfall." But, after research, I found that moons, clouds, and anything to do with twilight were heavily overused with other Lo-Fi logos.
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Next, I did what I do when illustrations become redudant: work with the brand name itself. I liked the idea of the "N" being elongated because it was a subtle call to the word "fall" in nightfall.
After playing around with a few more iterations of the enlongated "N," I realized that it looked like the Impact font. After writing "Nightfall District" in the Impact font, I played around with balancing the rounded end of the "N" with other letters. I ended up pulling down the bottom of the "H" in "nightfall," and the "R" in district because they were the consonants that had level bottoms. I found that pulling down the vowels too made it too busy, so I cut back that way.
Another aspect I took into consideration was Nightfall District's goal of creating music for everyone. Impact is a sans serif font which is readable by those with processing disorders or the visually impaired. The rounding of certain features is tasteful and also understandable as an artistic flourish and not a niche reference that the older generation might not understand.
LOGO &
SUBMARK
Nightfall District promotes heavily on social media, which meant it needed a logomark. To condense, I decided to make the "F" stylized as well because it fit nicely against the "N." I tried to fit the all "NFD" but I found that it make the design off balance on the right side.
​Then, it hit me. The "pulled down" style of the letters looked like dashes, furthermore, like the ones used on a map to indicate district borders. With that subtlety distinguished, I landed on just stylizing the "N" and "F" to represent "Nightfall" and the dash style to represent "District.
I also decided to create a submark that was more direct with the motif since it would help those who are more visually inclined to recognize her brand. This design could also be used on her business card to avoid redundancy with using the brand name over and over.
Usually I have the color palette laid down at the same time as the typography because in theory, you can't move on with the brand identity without it. However, I was having a lot of trouble choosing which one to use.
Nightfall District produces in a very saturated market and almost all the independent and larger producers such as Purpple Cat and Lofi Girl use purples. But, there is an underlying accent color of greys and blues, a scheme more commonly used in her other genre, EDM.
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I made another moodboard, this time with the blues and greys. I felt that the softer tone fit better with her epic soundscape music and was also easier on the eyes. This palette not only fit her themes better, but kept nailing home the accessibility part.
THE COLOR
PALETTE
The Album Cover
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Back when I was scrolling to find blues and greys for the moodboard, I found some photos of stoplights. I was intrigued by the color grading and how only one other color, red or orange, shown through. I also found brutalist, apocalyptic photos that matched with a lot of the motifs used in lo-fi.
I didn't want to create a busy scene because it would go against the readability aspect of Nightfall District's brand. I got the idea to put everything in a bell jar where everything is deliberately placed and viewable.
TRIALS
Brand Identity
Simplification
Color Palettes
When I first started the project, I quickly was caught up in the intricacy of lo-fi art and tried to fit too many ideas into one. The bouncing back and forth cost me time and energy, and I almost forgot Nightfall District's main brand value: accessibility.
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I also struggled with the color palettes. When I made the decision to switch over to the accent color, blue, I needed to create an entirely new scheme. I previously had avoided working with shades of grey because I didn't like how they fit with other colors due to their slight differences. However, this design choice did push me out of my comfort zone and I was able to learn more about color theory.