ART DIRECTOR
HOMETEAM RECORDS
Brand Book Development
Hometeam Records was a growing independent music company with a clear ambition: build succesful careers for artists without forcing them into a one-size-fits-all model. The founders had the right philosophy. The opportunity was to turn it into a brand people could recognize, understand, and grow with across every touchpoint.
MY ROLE:
As AD, I partnered with the founders to translate Hometeam’s vision into a complete visual identity. I developed the brand concept and style guide, directed the website, and established the visual system across logo, typography, color, social, merchandise, and artist-facing work.
POINT OF VIEW
At its core, Hometeam was built around individuality within a collective.
Every artist had their own path, sound, and identity, but the label existed to bring those different energies together and help each one move further. That became the foundation for a visual system inspired by refraction: one source of light passing through different mediums and emerging in new colors, directions, and forms. It gave us a way to express both sides of the brand at once, individual voices with a shared point of origin.
EXECUTION
That idea became a full brand system across logo, typography, color, iconography, photography, social, digital, merchandise, and artist-facing applications. I art directed and designed the full brand book, creating the visual standards and designs, and also a creative formula future designers and collaborators could use to recreate the Hometeam aesthetic consistently. The goal was to make the identity intuitive enough to scale, even when new creatives entered the ecosystem. As the label grew, I carried that system beyond the brand book, partnering with developers to bring the website to life and extending the visual language into artist development, releases, and partnership work.
WEBSITE
Credits
Client: Hometeam Records
Art Direction: Michele Mardorf
Copywriting: Mars Mahoney, Michele Mardorf
Graphic Design: Michele Mardorf
Web Developer: Chris Hardy