Dusty Speakers
A community obsessed with music.
The origin of Dusty is ~2006 as a mix cd swap, but it has evolved with the times from a mp3 blog to an email newsletter to a private chat. At it’s core, it’s a ever-changing group of folks passionate about unearthing classics & bopping new tunes.
It’s a joy to foster the community growth with and experiment with engagement and deeper discussions.
2015-present
Creative Director
⬛️ In-house
⬛️ Agency
⬛️ Freelance
☑️ Self-Initiated
Branding
Design
Merchandise
Community building
Content strategy
A monogram made in stereo.
The branding needed to be light and flexible for the many many digital uses. The letter form was inspired from vintage 45 rpm record adapters. The color palette was built from those wonderful warm 1970s wooden speaker boxes.
2017 Holiday Sticker
Rusty Projectors
Trusty Cleavers
Expanding out from music
As the community grew, organic spin-offs began to happen about other topics. This is when the Usty Empire started. The work spaces were cloned and mutated to fit the new topics and have their own communities being built.
Current groups: Music is Dusty Speakers, Movies/TV/Gaming is Rusty Projectors, and cooking is Trusty Cleavers.
Potential future groups but not really: Books could be Musty Letters, design could be Fuzzy Vectors, and science could be Crusty Beakers.
Emoji Decode
This project has it’s own damn page! Right on! Check it out over here!
The FINAL FACT
According the Noise Addicts, the loudest speaker in the world could produce a sound level of 165 dB, which can literally melt the wax out of your ears. To properly put this into perspective, the pain threshold of noise is 125dB. The loudest rock concerts in the world can get to 130dB, which isalso the sound level that airport workers would experience standing beside a jet engine if they took off their hearing protectors.