CASINO IDENTITY

Come the summer, London’s gamblers will be able to place their bets on Shaftesbury Avenue under the Golden Nugget casino’s new identity.

The Golden Nugget’s operator London Clubs International (LCI) brought in Hodgkinson & Co to create a new marque after seeing the consultancy’s identity work for Al Waha, the neighbouring Lebanese restaurant.

LCI operates seven London clubs as well as one in France, three in Egypt and one, to open this summer, in Lebanon, which also has an identity by Hodgkinson & Co. Each club has a different name and for its Shaftesbury Avenue site LCI was looking to update its image.

Hodgkinson & Co experimented with variations on the golden nugget theme, but such a close interpretation of the name in the logo didn’t come off, says managing director Andrew Hodgkinson. ‘We looked at gold and nugget as part of the early analysis, but what does a nugget look like?’

The final logo (pictured bottom), is ‘clever, bright and modern and reflects the fast pace and excitement of the Golden Nugget interior’, says LCI marketing director Marilyn Eden. ‘The predominant colour is red, considered by many to symbolise luck or good fortune, particularly in the Far East.’

The identity had to appeal to a mass-market, international audience and will be applied to signage, stationery and merchandising. The first glimpse of the Hodgkinson & Co’s logo will be on scaffolding erected for the cleaning and restoration of the building.

Hodgkinson & Co’s proposed scheme for projecting signs, awnings and glass canopies for the exterior is awaiting planning approval. If the scheme is given the go-ahead, the new identity will be visible in June or July, once the scaffolding comes down.