Case study · Brand & identity · Website
Argyll Rhythm
A brand for a drum and percussion tutor in Mid Argyll, drawn from the hills she teaches beneath.
The brief
Seónaid Macpherson teaches drum kit and percussion across Mid Argyll. She wanted a brand as personal and local as her lessons.
The identity had to come from somewhere true rather than the generic music-school look, and it had to work in the places a rural tutor is actually seen: a phone screen, a village hall poster, the side of a car.
So it started where she does, with the landscape on her doorstep.
- Client
- Seónaid Macpherson
- Year
- 2026
- Location
- Lochgilphead, Mid Argyll
- Designer
- Andrew A. Stewart
- Scope
- Brand identity · Packaging · Website
The idea
One line, two readings.
The mark is the line of the Paps of Jura, the hills you see across the water from the Argyll coast, drawn as a single gesture that also reads as a drum’s waveform.
Place and rhythm in one stroke. It is drawn by hand and closes back on itself like a signature, so it carries the energy of handwriting rather than the neatness of a shape somebody chose from a grid.
One continuous line also means one continuous gradient, heather at the start and amber at the end, which is what makes the mark read as a hill at dusk without anybody having to say so.
The mark
Four versions, one drawing.
The gradient is the primary form, shown at the top of this page, and it does most of the work. The two single-colour cuts exist because a one-colour print, an embroidered polo and a vinyl car decal are all real jobs for a tutor working out of a village, and none of them can hold a gradient.
The wordmark
Her name, set quietly.
Raleway throughout: the name in bold with tight tracking, the line beneath it light and widely spaced. It ships as outlined artwork rather than live text, so the wordmark cannot shift on a slow connection or on a machine without the font. The mark is the character in this identity, so the type stays quiet beside it, and it is lowercase because she does not introduce herself in capitals.
Colour
Heather, transition, amber.
A hill at dusk, read left to right. The transition colour exists to make the blend land properly and is never used on its own.
Brand gradient · heather to amber
Heather
#7D5A8A
The hill at dusk. Start of the gradient.
Transition
#A87060
The turn. Never used on its own.
Amber
#C8873A
Lit windows. End of the gradient, and the accent.
Near black
#1E1E1E
The ground. Warmer than black.
Warm cream
#F4EFE6
Paper, and the light alternative.
The icon
Small, square, still hers.
A profile picture, a favicon and a map pin are all the same problem: a square, at a size where the wordmark is unreadable. The mark alone survives it, because the silhouette is the recognisable part rather than the detail.
Launched 2026
A brand that sounds like Seónaid and looks like the hills she teaches beneath.
Live at argyllrhythm.co.uk.