Lethal look for start-up music label Stray Cat Records

Lethal has designed the visual identity for start-up music label Stray Cat Records.

Lethal director Jesse Boyce was appointed in October, having worked previously with Cannonball PR, the music public relations company which owns and runs the new label.

The new marque has been designed for use across all music platforms and media channels. Boyce claims the logo will look good printed in any size to allow for miniaturisation and digitisation. The identity is intended to represent Stray Cat’s ‘independent, no-frills position within the current market’, he adds.

A cat’s claw is depicted as a record needle, to reflect the ‘tongue-in-cheek name that is indicative of the state of the record industry’, says Boyce. Tufts of fur on the cat’s leg and an abrasive treatment of the marque are intended ‘to accentuate the Stray Cat look’, he explains. Cannonball’s foray into the record industry follows those of design consultancies that have attempted the same feat.

Red Design, which has worked with EMI Records, Island Records, Ninja Tunes and Polydor, set up Red Records in 2001.

‘We’ve been music-focused since we were founded and the label was a way to get work,’ says Red Design managing director Alastair Reid. ‘We thought that if we created things on our own, we could do better work, be more experimental and be seen by bigger labels.’

Red Records signed two artists for whom they created branding, artwork, packaging and videos, but the label hasn’t been active since 2006.