Iisalmi represents a unique, but distinctly Finnish combination of industrialism, nature and outgoing, rock-loving and hardworking people.

We worked with the city to crystallise their persona aurally in a series of sound logos, a custom soundtrack as well as a strategy for using audio and music in their marketing and communications.

CLIENT
CITY OF IISALMI
YEAR
2022
SERVICES
SOUND BRANDING - MUSIC
Concept
Hildén & Kaira
Audio
Aarni Hildén
Visual
Matti Kaira

Perhaps surprisingly, several industry-leading companies, such as the professional-grade loudspeaker manufacturer Genelec or the soft drink and beverage behemoth Olvi have sprouted from the second-largest Northern Savonian municipality.

Perhaps surprisingly, several industry-leading companies come from Iisalmi.

The professional-grade loudspeaker manufacturer Genelec and the soft drink and beverage behemoth Olvi are just two examples of success stories sprouting from the second-largest Northern Savonian municipality.

Pivotal for our project, Iisalmi also has an extremely strong connection to music, which has led them to both order custom tracks from local bands and hold open competitions for residents to create their own Iisalmi song.

Inspired and guided by this information, we designed Iisalmi's sound brand in three stages.

02. BACKGROUND TRACK
Building upon the colourful logos and their textures, we created a background track that combines these elements in a uniquely Iisalmi-like manner.
The background track was designed to be a seamlessly self-repeating sound mat for events, online streams and other activities.

To create a long, drone-esque mat for the track we used the different logo versions modified with several effects, such as delays and reverbs to make them repeat and fill the atmosphere with the sound of Iisalmi.
This base was then layered with other more prominent elements, such as analog-synth bells and nature recordings to reflect the Iisalmi soundscape.

The track was composed in such a way that it can fade out into the sound logo at any point seamlessly, which offers applications to events in terms of, for example, speeches or announcements.
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Sound strategy ensures the unified and meaningful use of sound logos, the background track as well as music commissioned from local artists or taken from an audio library.

On the whole, the strategy entails both tips and tricks in using these new elements in Iisalmi's branding as well as more detailed guidance on specific scenarios in which certain renditions and textures work best.

03. SOUND STRATEGY

A common time-sink especially in video productions is the eternal search for just the right background track from a sea of different audio libraries. To combat this, we created a curated list of songs for different moods and scenarios chosen from a single audio library.

This allows Iisalmi to uphold a unified and classy, yet diverse catalogue of music in their productions, creating a strong base for audiovisual communications & marketing that does not feel forced and, simply put, boring.