Client: Swap Beats

Swapbeats.com is a hybrid social network and music marketplace that allows a user to connect with other musicians around the world and to collaborate on musical endeavors. Users are able to upload music tracks and swap, sell, and buy them at will. The site also provides a community for the users to get feedback and make connections and collaborate on projects with other users.

In developing a mark for the site, I took into consideration the vernacular of the musician and the process of creating music in the studio. As a musician lays down a track, the music is transferred from an instrument to the recording device via musical instrument cables. Keeping this in mind, I developed a logotype that is visually reminiscent of these cables and uses the metaphor of the transfer of musical information through cables as an allusion to the social networking process and the uploading and downloading that occurs on the site, as shown by the arrows at the ends of the cables.