CBGB

It was a dream project to work on strategy and design for the legendary NYC punk club.

Research was the best - reading about and looking at pictures of some of the best bands in history, getting real info from the original scenesters, going through the archive of rock history artifacts.

It’s the sort of project you never want to end!

When CBGB closed in 2005, the building was purchased by John Varvatos to become a menswear shop, but the intellectual property and licensing were sold to private investors.

The investors hired us (Beardwood, the boutique agency where I worked) to develop a strategy and design guidelines for future partners and licensees to keep the club’s legacy intact.

PART 1

RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

In the beginning, we took the client on a journey to level-set on what CBGB was — and what it wasn’t.

They were enthusiastic, but didn’t always have a clear picture on what their assets meant to the people who created the scene, or to the people it impacted.

One exercise was to collect hundreds of images that “people say” meant “punk”, and go through each and talk about whether they actually did or did not mean “punk”.

The pictures that we agreed with helped to inform a visual style for the brand, and the words used to describe each picture helped distill the tone of voice.

The client felt the exercise was so useful and clear, that they requested the outcome be made into a piece of collateral that could be shared with potential partners for an instant read.

We hosted a round-table discussion with some of the people who were around during CGBG’s heyday — performers, friends, regulars, and employees.

We heard first-hand insight about what magical factors caused such a lasting impact which helped us create an authentic voice for the brand.

We created a manifesto for CBGB that would help set the standard.

For more traditional brands, this would be called a “mission statement” or just “strategy”, but for CBGB, everything we did had to fit the brand.

PART 2

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

During this phase, we pinpointed other brands and organizations that would be ideal partners for CBGB — classic, authentic brands such as Levi’s, Converse All-Stars, Vans, Fender and Gibson, etc., as well as identified product categories that would be good for licensing deals (music gear, skateboards, t-shirts, etc)

We also created original designs as a guideline of what sort of style the products should have.

The Look

The design was inspired by the textures of the club’s walls, flyers & posters, and other stuff left behind.

I used the analog methods of making show flyers to create an authentic look — textures and patterns were created by Xeroxing, headlines were made from Letraset and and vinyl stickers, and notes and captions were scribbled in with Sharpies or grease pencils.

We designed potential licensed products on tiers; the more loud designs would be more accessible to both young and old fans, and then more subtle, bigger-ticket items as well.