Key Criteria and Considerations when Rolling out a New Pedal or Pedal Brand!

The two core visuals (Top and below) are from a couple of articles I did on 'Distinct, Memorable and Instantly Identifiable Brands'. All based on key Compact Enclosures.

The first is based on unique pedal enclosure shapes, and the second is more about various design / artwork elements - the 'Trade Dress' edition!

I felt compelled to include Kernom in the Shape category - even though their shape is a kind of modern inflection on the Klon Centaur enclosure - it is utterly unique in its stature - and I always cite Kernom has having the best quality of manufacturing in the industry - where that team honed their skills originally on the magnificent 108dB / 1100W RMS Devialet Phantom Loudspeaker.

Shape can be a key killer differentiator - but it requires a lot of upfront investment - which is rarely a viable route for small fledgling brands - better for most to build up to that level!

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

That much will always be true - but there are certain design tropes and devices, colours and font choices - that lend your pedal more appeal! More appeal usually means it's more likely to sell!

You may not agree with all my choices here - but hopefully there will be some degree of overlap - we all have our own idiosyncrasies and favourites!

It's a mix of colour, artwork, layout and overall enclosure styling that leads to success - there's no shortage of leading examples from this industry - and several brands are very well renowned for their standard of fit and finish. I will cite my friends at Kernom for their exceptional build quality - those eggshell finished feel amazing under the fingers - proper luxury product levels of finish!

There are at least 6 different editions of the Dr. Scientist Elements Overdrive / Multi-Drive  - by far and away my favourite is the Gold Bar edition - I can't thins of a more apt variant to represent the 'Elements' moniker - and it looks glorious in the flesh!

You run into similar challenges with Beetronics in particular - where there are so many different custom editions - that it rarely makes sense to grab the original one - you normally benefit by waiting a few weeks. And if you still really like the original standard version - then that one is likely still available after those several weeks of waiting for something better to come along!

I always say you should make the very best version of any pedal that you can - and for me - that is the Gold Bar version of the Elements - none of the others can really match up to that one's appeal!

Interestingly Walrus has deviated a lot of late - for a while they had a kind of spacey sci-fi aesthetic - but it's really all over the place at the moment - weirdly Walrus are still mostly easily identifiable from a distance! Most of these other brands have remained true to their mission, while Foxpedal alas is no more!

'Latest' is alas not always 'Greatest' 

There are several pedals where I prefer the earlier models.

There's also been a trend of late to release Special Edition Anniversary Pedals - with additional features - but artificially limited in numbers. And then when those are all sold - you're back to the previous 'standard' more inferior version!

Both LPD Pedals and Twilight Pulse have done this recently. If you've seen the Special Edition pedal with the extra features - why would you ever want to go back to the standard model! Special Editions should mostly be about Limited Colourways and Rare Component Limitations!

For me there are a large number of preferred / better prior pedal iterations - which are no longer available.

I always feel you should make the best version of your pedal possible! Otherwise it's a little like Apple holding back functionality for its next iterative release. Where Samsung typically tends to load all the available innovations into its latest models.

If you care about brand quality and equity - always make the best possible version of that pedal - unless of course you're using super rare components which may have become obsolete overnight!

For me the original MKI Termofuzz is superior in every way to its successor - it's easier to dial in, delivers more variety, and somehow sounds better in comparison - louder and more searing. More controls does not always make for a better pedal - the original was a masterpiece - and the successor is alas not nearly as good!

This is probably my most stolen visual - there have been so many trying to lay claim to this visual I did back in 2019. Everyone steals my visuals - but none so much as this one!

Pedal Knobs are an essential design decision.

My good friend Ian at Gigahearts has mostly just 2 knob types - a fairly unique small silver-top, and the Lovetone Knob of choice - those 2 different sized knobs work for almost every scenario. He limits his inventory exposure - and makes it easier for him to keep those managed and in stock.

As a default - I really like the Boss and MXR type knobs. I also love a lot of those custom Machined Aluminium ones. and brands like Empty Head Effects and Blind Panic Devices are really pushing innovative designs for 3D-Printed knobs.

I encourage all brands to eventually originate / evolve their own knob design/s - as it's such an emotive element within that pedal's design.

For me every pedal has a perfect knob application - size, shape, material, colour etc.

Some of those knobs are overly ubiquitous - but they can still absolutely be the correct knob choice.

Skreddy used to universally have those knurled designs of aluminium knobs - but more recently the portfolio has expanded to other less characterful knobs also. Those original knurled knobs were a quintessential part of the Skreddy look - where the brand is now a little diminished without them!

In any case - you've got plenty of options! Sometimes the plainer option is correct, sometimes the chicken head - but always your own unique signature design!

Each of these pedals benefits from its own custom knobs - which add massively to the appeal of those pedals.

All pedal brands should consider making their own knobs as they are such a key design component for pedals. The right knobs on a pedal can make a huge difference!

Colour definition is so important.

Boss and MXR pioneered this approach - but several brands still adhere to a similar colour-code - including Strymon, Mad Professor, OneControl, and even Tru-Fi - although they have the further advantage of their unique enclosure shape / design.

Most 'Paints' and Powder Coatings were developed in other industries - particularly automotive.

Where your typical 'lacquer' used to be Nitro-Cellulose, but is now mostly Acrylic/Polyurethane - with recent innovations in Metallic, Sparkle and even colour-changing / flip-flop finishes. I think Gørva introduced one of the very first colour-shifting enclosures - which flips from Green to Purple - I have that on a couple of my Custom Expresso FX Pedals.

The original John Mayer Silver Sky colours were derived from Tesla Paint References - while that's not such a hot move currently.

There's a huge psychology with colour - Blue is normally very safe, banana yellow not so much! A lot of Budget Brands use Yellow Logos and packaging markers while Jewel and Gem colours normally denote high quality.

Also - we've ended up with a number of specific colours and hues representing certain pedal categories - but not necessarily always the right colour. For instance and because of Boss we have Sky Blue as the main reference colour for Chorus - while Strymon got it more right in that Sky Blue is really more Reverb, and Chorus should be more of a watery Marine or Sea Blue variety really.

In any case - several colurs are associated with certain pedal types, while a lot of categories are still wide open - and short of an overarching colour hegemony!

For funerals alone - different cultures adhered to difference hues - these can be mostly Black or White - but also Red, Purple, Blue or Grey for different cultures, countries and religions! Wearing the wrong colour at solemn occasions can have serious consequences. Historically - certain colours - Purples and Blues in particular were reserved for the higher echelons and nobility - wearing one of those taboo colours at that time could result in punishment, imprisonment, or worse! So one way or another colour has always been of significant importance - symbolically, culturally and otherwise!

Your colour selection says a lot about your brand and it's perceived value - and you need to choose your palette carefully, Boss's mostly just kind of evolved - but they made some great choices along the way - as did MXR. Of the Big 3 - those 2 are way head of EHX in terms of consistent brand markers!

I've made several attempts to categories the most obvious dominant associated colours for different pedal categories.

For some there are fairly obvious colour markers - Green for Overdrive, Orange for Phaser, Sky Blue for Chorus, Black for Distortion etc.

Other categories are still wide open - while I've tried to rationalise the most relevant colour for each - with some degrees of best-fit.

Your Colour Palette and Colour Choices can be critical though to a pedal's success!

Hot Pink!

Red Means Marshall! weirdly, while Red also means Compressor (Dynacomp etc.), and Gold also more typically means Marshall

Bronze means Vemuram!

Orange means Phaser!

Yellow means Overdrive ... also Green! as we shall see! - Yellow was the original OverDrive Colour though!

Green means Scream! The ubiquitous Green Overdrive!

Sky Blue Means Chorus!, per Boss, while elementally it's more suitable for Reverb really!

Blue means the Blues! - Blues Driver, BluesBreaker - whatever Blues we've got one for youse!

Purple means Fuzz! Full on Hendrix / Purple Haze - the most suitable colour for Fuzz truly!

Black means Distortion! Kinda obvious really! 90% of Metal Distortions are Black! As is obviously the ProCo Rat. While the best selling distortion of all time - Boss's 1.5+ million seller DS-1 Distortion is Orange!

White means Delay! Not a foregone conclusion really - while there are a great number of white delay pedals out there - and obviously all Boss Delays have historically been white! My Empress EchoSystem is white also - as are a number from my own roster!

Mood boards have long been an essential tool within advertising agencies.

You need to build up Brand and Product Profiles from their influences and shared audiences - based on consumer psychology / like-minds targeting - and coming up with suitable brand markers that appeal to certain defined audiences and their specific preferences.

Everything needs to go onto the Mood Board - which traditionally involved magazine clippings - but now is more in the digital domain. I often think of it as a collage of all the key influences and markers. Including similar aspirant brands.

As an example Reeves Electro / Markus Reeves is heavily influenced by Art Nouveau Illustrations - and has several books on that subject - which inform his acid-etched pedal designs. Not everyone has such a singular vision - but as I keep saying "Consistency is Quality". And putting all your brand profile bricks into the same wall - is going to build a more visible landmark for you.

For a Mood Board you need to cover Colours, Tones, Textures, Thematic and Narrative Influences - and Brands with a similar profile audience - who do you aspire to be like? You're essentially setting out the recipe for building a specific 'cake' or 'series of cakes'. You need to be able to hold up the Brand Profile against the Execution - to make sure those are properly well-matched to the original intentions.

Over time - having all those brand markers down - means that it's easier to deliver new and additional pedals to that same theme - as you already have the Colour Palette down, the fonts, and all the various brand markers and assets you need to reference. This exercise takes a little more effort upfront - but it pays for itself in spades with your ongoing brand rollout

It is essential for your Designer to see your Mood Board / Vision Board - so they can be sure that they have captured the essence of your intent!

You need a certain discipline too also to not get to broad and eclectic - there needs to be some degree of focus - or else the remit will be too large to every be fully successfully rationalised.

You need to remember that you are creating the brand for a specific audience - so you might need to curb some of your own excesses - to originate and roll out a consistently appealing brand / product portfolio - for that audience! 

Ideally make the Font relevant to your Brand / Theme - and make sure it's legible in all situations - a versatile font is really worth it longer-term - different weights, italics etc.

Choose from 4 key font families :

• Serif
• Semi-Serif
• Slab-Serif
• Sans-Serif

I tend to favour the Semi and Sans Serif - there are myriad font libraries out there on the web and in print format - with several free resources. There are even utilities to make your own fonts if you so wish - trickier than you would think - as there is so much geometry and mathematics in the kerning of individual and connected letters - and you need to be familiar with the golden ratio too! 

There are famous font catalogue books with as many as 5,000 or 10,000 fonts even - while an internet utility is usually easier to navigate and search with! There are even utilities that can mostly identify fonts from pictures. While there are a lot of custom fonts out there - and not all of them will be readily available.

You will beed to pick something that works for your Theme - but maintains legibility across different sizes and resolutions. You should produce your logo onto Black, White and Coloured Backgrounds - and at varying sizes - where you have inflection options - where you need to adjust the weight or character of the font in different circumstance - for it to look absolute and consistent!

An array of mostly Internationally recognisable symbol - albeit some more colloquial but brilliant examples included here also!

Amnesty International | Android | Apple | Bacardi | Bands In Town

British Rail | Goodyear | Nike | Guild of Food Writers | HMV His Masters Voice | Innocent

Johnnie Walker | Lufthansa | Nestlé | Nirvana | Playboy

Polo Ralph Lauren | Rolex | Rolling Stones | The Royal Parks | Shell

Twitter (defunct) | UBS | Wella | Woolmark | WWF World Wide Fund for Nature

Idents are singularly useful brand markers - and none so ubiquitous as the Nike Swoosh - which has to be the champion of that discipline to date - I don't think any brand marker is as instantly recognisable as the Nike Swoosh - that's what you need to set out to achieve - something memorable and meaningful.

Nike's swoosh is inseparable from its strapline 'Just Do It' that is the greatest double punch in the world of advertising and marketing to date! Adidas uses different brand assets to compete. It has a vast heritage too - to sustain it. While in terms of Ident and Sloganeering Nike significantly outmuscles it!

Fun Fact ! - the dog's name in the HMV ident is 'Nipper'!

There's so much confusion about pedal enclosure sizes - and mostly because of EHX!

For me - this is the proper ascending order of the 9 most likely enclosure formats you will encounter - EHX lunacy in [parenthesis]

• Micro [N/A]
• Mini [Pico]
• Compact [Nano]
• Medium Slim [N/A]
• Medium Portrait [Mini]
• Medium Square [N/A]
• Medium Landscape [Mini]
• Large [Compact]
• X-Large [Compact?]

Generally Compact Enclosures sell the best - the WIDTH dimension is the most critical - so I typically have a preference for portrait formats - except larger stereo workstation pedals which sit at the tail-end of the chain!

For me there are essentially 3 classes of Footswitches :

• Hard-Click (old-school!)
• Soft-Click
• Soft-Touch

But several different applications available - which can also lend a certain technical look and feel to your pedals - vis-a-vis Horrothia's Mil-spec Zinc Arcade Style Switches - or TheGigRig's domed OptoKick optical types - which are also found on Hamstead Soundworks pedals!

HOOK - A Visual and Verbal Beneficial Offer Cleverly Conveyed

PROOF - Rationalisation and Reinforcement

ACTION - Call to Action > Next Steps!

So beyond being musical tools and instruments of their own accord - Pedals are also mini advertisements for that pedal and the brand as a whole - evoking and reinforcing a particular set of brand qualities - use of colour also positions the pedal in terms of its likely cost, technical capabilities etc!

For smaller lesser known brands - those brand markers are increasingly important in helping your prospects and potential customers to be able to easily find you.

That's why you should always include the name of the pedal visibly - and where to find it ideally! (URL if you must!)

This is essentially advertising agency terminology.

THEME [group] is the overarching Family / Series Look / Feel / Key Brand Markers

SCHEMES [singular] are the individual constituents (Pedals) that need to fit within that family and carry those same consistent markers and brand values.

You can of course have subdivisions and specific colour variants within the Theme - as below!

The following below brands do an excellent job of fully maintaining brand values / look / feel / associations - across all their pedals - including subsets - there are many brands that are excellent at this! I just picked the first 5 that came to mind!

This is about consistency, continuity and continuous forward momentum.

CONSISTENCY = QUALITY

All these brands featured here below are instantly recognisable from a distance - for every single one of their pedals - all use colour to some degree - some are also about unique enclosure shapes, and others are more about familiarity and quality of layout.

There are several brands that I could have shared here - while these 5 all felt very appropriate!

There are several best practice methodologies that I'm recommending with this article.

I feel that all pedals should print their current draw on the pedal - either on the front facia - or near the actual port.

I tend to use the format 9V DC [-] XXXmA where the parenthesis indicates centre negative [-] or positive [+] polarity. It's essential to know the power requirement and polarity of your pedal.

I feel it is important to have a Brand Icon / Marker / Ident to be more easily identifiable and to allow prospects to more easily connect with the brand - ideally on the facia - either side of the footswitch makes most sense.

And it's helpful to display your URL too (particular for small fledgling brands) - so that people can quickly find you for support and follow-up acquisitions!

Now that USB-C is standard for all consumer electronic products - I feel pedal-makers should institute several best practice standards themselves - with everything at 9V DC [-] except in very exceptional circumstances.

Most Tube Pedals are 12V or 18V - and a lot of those vintage BBD Modulations seem to be 18V too - I can mostly get away with using a Voltage Doubler adapter fir those - but there are some super fussy pedals - where that just won't work! I also have entirely power supplies that allow me to easily change the voltage - but it's still all to easy to make a mistake and connect an 18V lead into a 9V pedal!

I'm all about making it as easy as possible for the customer / consumer - but not everyone necessarily has that front of mind.

You need to keep reminding yourself that you are making pedals for an audience - which means you often need to temper and reign in your excesses - as those pedals need to be accepted by your customer base - without them - you would not have a business!

The naming of things can be tricky - as there's so much already out there in the world - and certain monikers may / can have suspect meanings in some dialects and cultures.

You typically need further and alternative options for each name origination, and need to think well outside of the box - create your own Lore, dabble in neologism, and take a path less well traveled! There will be instances when a name you'd placed your hopes on is alas already in use somewhere - and you need to fall back to one of your alternatives. So like when betting on roulette - you should always operate on a spread of probabilities!

Almost all the obvious stuff is already taken! Coming up with a unique URL nowadays is quite the ordeal compared to 20 or 30 years ago!

And for any naming exercise you are almost always going to need several backup options.

You're always aiming for as few syllables and letters as possible - but the shorter the word typically - the more likely it has been taken already.

So you need to think in terms of compound words typically - or some alternative tangent.

Ian at Gigahearts came up with a very smart moniker for our Blakemore Deus Ex Machina inspired pedal collaboration.

It turns out there is also a game called Deus Ex Machina, and the principal character, protagonist and hero of that is one 'Denton' - which is the perfect name for the new pedal - short and sweet! It's also a suburb within Ian's native Manchester!

Ian has a really agile brain for this kind of stuff - and loves a good pun or two and verbal inflection - hence Trés Bull / Treble - for his Dual Mids and Treble Booster.

You almost always need a thesaurus handy - so you can bounce around a variety of ideas - and take whatever tangents you need to get to a successful resolution.

Sometimes these things come relatively quickly, some times they require days. I find it's always good to sleep on it. Even when you feel you've come up with the ideal moniker - check yourself again the following morning to see if you're still happy with it!

Doing this in too hasty a manner always results in a disaster - be sure you're 100% on everything before you send to print!

Empress's recent Drive pedal is a masterpiece of design - beautiful form and function - where the lit-up Clipping Meter VU adds massive appeal also. And yes the 250mA current draw is labelled above the power socket on the rear of the pedal! A modern classic in the making for sure! With all appropriate brand markers present and correct!

Ian at Gigahearts' most recent design - near perfect really - beautifully arresting and appealing with all the appropriate brand markers and brand equity carried through.

I would just tweak a couple of things - add in the mA current draw up top - there is space for it!

And instead of the sort of Made In Manchester strap - I would include the website url - GIGAHEARTSFX.COM - to make it easier for potential customers to buy that pedal.

Other than those tiny tweaks - this is a perfect design as far as I'm concerned - everything in the right place!

Once the brand is more established you might change the strapline to something else - but why make it harder for customers to find their way to you!?!

One of the few that does have the mA rating up top - 300mA in this instance.

Pettyjohn Electronics is possibly well enough known to not have a URL displayed - and the URL is a very straight forward brand + .com - pettyjohnelectronics.com - if that were not the case - then possibly a URL would be a boon / bonus!

Another recent near perfect design - just missing the mA rating up top.

The brand is quite a mouthful - so like Keeley Electronics also has a RKFX.com domain for easy access - perhaps EAE might consider doing a similar exercise - typing in all those letters can be quite the ordeal!

A pretty much perfect design here - with all the appropriate brand markers - and the mA rating up top - 500mA!

And finally this imminent one - which is now supposedly due to land this month after being much delayed.

All the brand markers are present - as is the 500mA current draw rating up top.

Gamechanger is an interesting brand - as all their pedal brands / series look vastly different - and thus are more challenging in some ways for brand recall - while they're also kind of unmistakeable in their idiosyncrasies. All very unique - which helps too!

Dieter Rams of Braun fame, and Teenage Engineering's Jesper Kouthoofd have immediately identifiable and familiar design languages - that pervade all their creations - those designers products are instantly recognisable.

In some ways France's Kernom carries similar sensibilities - while they are at the start of their journey really - with just 3 devices to their name so far - we will see how truly potent they are when they have a roster of 10 or so! I have high hopes in any case!