Michael Armitage approached me to design a logo, business card and guitar label for his luthier business, ‘Armitage Guitars'. He wanted a design that reflected the tradition of the European classical guitar.
Michael builds traditional Spanish classical guitars, Brazilian 7 string guitars and French gypsy jazz guitars. He also repairs and restores stringed instruments. He works alone from a small workshop, using hand tools and traditional, old-world methods to build each guitar, one at a time.
I took inspiration from the shapes and strings of the beautiful instruments, the symbols of musical notation and the care and hand-done nature of the craft. The letters overlap and join, reminiscent of the tinkering of elements all fitting together.
The custom logo design was initially sketched by hand and then drawn on the computer, taking cues from the bespoke and hand-crafted method of Michael's instruments.