Basement of the Dead was already a locally established brand when I started. When I became their art director, I wanted to set a “foundation” for developing a globally recognizable brand. I started with a simple style guide.

Located in the heart of Downtown Aurora in the basement of a building that has been around since 1883, I leaned into the industrial legacy of the building. I imagined the building being the featured setting for a long lost grindhouse slasher film of the 70’s. Mysterious, bricked up tunnels and steel girders framed a space that echoed legends of a boiler room explosion and Prohibition mobsters.

While other companies started to streamline their brands, I went the other direction and established a “concrete + rust + neon” textural motif. I also selected colors of a worn-out American flag for the color palette. I chose Google fonts for accessibility: Antonio was selected to reflect the horror film posters of the 1970’s while Cinzel was selected to match the chiseled letters from stone masonry of the Aurora National Bank just down the street. Finally, I edited the original “slanted & stacked” logo to an alternate horizontal format for proportion and balance in some unique cases.