Frequently Asked Questions: Materia Rebrand 2020
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What are the different brands?
Why rebrand?
How do I talk about the company, or the family of brands?
How did you settle on these brands?
Why is “Materia Collective” the name of your record label?
How does this affect artists with existing albums out from Materia Collective?
How does this affect members of Materia Community?
Are you updating your email addresses and social media accounts?
How long have you been working on the rebrand?
What’s the story behind the logos?
What’s next?
Q: What are the different brands?
Materia Music is our parent brand. It’s a video game music record label, music publisher, and rights administrator. Everything we do falls under the umbrella of Materia Music. Materia Records is our record label group, and Materia Music Publishing takes care of music publishing and publishing administration services. If you’re a game developer, composer, or artist working with us, these are the brands you’ll encounter.
Materia Collective is our first record label, Materia Editions is our sheet music publisher, and the Materia Store is where we sell not just our own products but also things we love that are made by other labels, game companies, and artists. If you’re a fan or collector, these are the brands you’ll know.
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Q: Why rebrand?
When Materia was first founded in 2015, we could never have imagined what it has become today. As we grow, we keep finding new ways to provide what people need in the video game music world. Up until now, we haven’t differentiated between these new branches. While that gives us a lot of freedom to expand wherever we’re needed, it can also be a bit confusing. We hope our new brand family clarifies what we offer and who we are. When you look at any one of our brands, you should be able to tell what you can expect from that brand, what it does, and how it can help you.
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Q: How do I talk about the company, or the family of brands?
You can use the name Materia Music to refer to us, or just Materia, which encompasses all the brands in our family. You’ll see us using Materia to refer to ourselves a lot. (People have been calling us “Materia” since we started, so this is a natural fit.)
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Q: How did you settle on these brands?
We focused on you, our audience. We wanted to make sure that fans could easily follow the brands that are most relevant to them, whether (for example) they love sheet music and are excited to hear more about it, or if they’d rather just hear about new album releases. We hope Materia Collective, Materia Editions, and the Materia Store are clear and easy to understand.
When we developed Materia Music and the other industry-facing brands, we wanted to follow a familiar structure shared by other music group brands in the music industry. Our fans may not be as familiar with the licensing and publishing side of things, but they’re very important and also need to be clearly represented!
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Q: Why is “Materia Collective” the name of your record label?
When people think of “Materia Collective,” they think of video game music — and more specifically, they think of albums. The very first thing we did under that name was release an album, and we’ve never stopped. We wanted to honor the importance of our catalog of albums as a fundamental part of who we are, so we chose to retain the original name for that purpose. A record label imprint was the perfect fit.
(We thought about using “Materia Collective” to name all of our brands, but “Materia Collective Music Group” or “Materia Collective Sheet Music” would be quite a mouthful, don’t you think?)
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Q: How does this affect artists with existing albums or sheet music from Materia Collective?
Your albums are still Materia Collective albums, since the original Materia Collective brand also served as a record label. Any reprints of CDs or vinyl will feature the new Materia Collective logo, and they may have Materia Records or Materia Music added as well. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions!
All sheet music from now on, including reprints, will feature the Materia Editions logo and be branded as a Materia Editions release. We’ve already begun working on this transition!
Q: How does this affect members of Materia Community?
We already created a unique identity for Materia Community earlier in 2020 so that fans and community members could easily identify projects and news that have to do with our community albums and events. You are still an important part of the Materia family, and all Materia Community albums will be released under the Materia Collective label. When it comes to publishing albums, we treat Materia Community as the artist and Materia Collective as the label, so we’ll still be sharing all community albums through both brands!
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All existing email addresses are staying the same (@materiacollective.com). However, you’ll notice that we have added social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook to make it easier to follow specific brands in our family:
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Q: How long have you been working on the rebranding?
We began preliminary research in January 2020. The rebranding has been a significant nine-month undertaking. We expect we’ll spend the next six months to clarify the new brands, update any mentions of our brands, answer questions, and make sure you feel comfortable understanding who we are now.
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Q: What’s the story behind the logos?
We partnered with brand consultant Diego Jiménez of PERSONA Creative Studio to develop a suite of logos that retain their own clear brand identity while sharing certain characteristics. Each logo reflects the individual brand. For example, the Materia Editions logo resembles both a stack of books and the letter E; the Materia Collective logo resembles two grooved albums, each reminiscent of a C, that together form the silhouette of an M.
Think about the brands like different members of a family; they have certain attributes in common, but they also have their own personalities. We wanted our logos to reflect that relationship, and we think Diego did an outstanding job with them.
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Q: What’s next?
Right now, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us updating everything and making sure everyone hears the news about our new brands! It’s going to be a transition period, and we understand that. Expect to see reminders and explanations about the brands for a while longer, even after we get back to business as usual.
We have more exciting plans on the horizon as well, and we will share them with you when they’re ready!
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