Abnormal Nights Comedy
Abnormal Nights is a live stand up comedy show located at the Adams Avenue Theater in San Diego’s Normal Heights neighborhood. Going on two years now, they were in need of a distinct visual identity that would separate them from the rest of the comedy scene around the city as well as solve some challenges specific to their show.
Top priority was developing ways to promote the show without relying on announcing any specific acts. Unlike larger comedy clubs, Abnormal Nights is the kind of show that well-known comedians might drop-in unannounced to headline and test new material. Even smaller local comedians are known to drop in/out last second. This loose structure made it hard to create posts promising any specific acts and often the team would use the same poster for every show.
Any addition to that, the specifics parts of the identify also needed to be simple enough to hand off to a very small team with no real designer but with enough built in complexity to create a variety of layouts and keep things interesting.
The original logo was a nod to the beloved Normal Heights sign located down the block from the theater. While celebrating the neighborhood was nice, you’ll find the sign thrown onto merchandise and sold in stores around the area and online. It didn’t make for a very ownable logo and if the teams plans for the future come to fruition, the show will expand to venues outside the neighborhood.
The new logo uses Arpona with slight customizations to the counters of the A and O. Where you’d expect to find a typical triangular counter in the A and circle in the O, you instead find a circle and a square.
The A.N. team structures the show in their own specific way with intermissions to roast the audience and go over the best Venmo captions from donations from last month’s show. A wordmark that nods to this atypical approach to a comedy show was vital.
On promotional material where the logo may not be appropriate or look good, the circle and square motif can take its’ place and be used as a simpler and more versatile representation of the show.
