How R/GA built a record label identity from the glow of a live crowd

One Day is a Sydney-based record label that builds careers from the ground up, backed by EMI Music Australia and part of the wider Universal Music family. It signs emerging and overlooked talent, backing artists from their first ambition, rather than waiting for a breakthrough to prove themselves. To carry that posture into the brand, One Day turned to creative innovation company R/GA, which delivered a system spanning verbal identity, visual design and a digital platform. The idea behind it all started with the label’s name. Every artist has a ‘one day’ – the moment they are working towards – which R/GA decided to make visible before it arrives. “We took the name and turned it into a clock,” explains Creative Director Henry Cook. Rather than sitting as a static mark, the logo runs as a countdown towards each artist’s breakthrough, and the dream it counts towards is one that the artist names themselves. For Jade Yee-Smith, it was ONE:DAY I’ll play to 20,000. For Chillinit, ONE:DAY my bars will pay off mum’s house. And for tiffi, ONE:DAY the world will know my story. The countdown can shift into a date, or the BPM of a track, tracking the highs and the lows while the dream stays fixed in view. When an artist reaches it, the clock resets to a new horizon. “That clock became this constant reminder of, ‘One day, I'm going to get there,’” Cook tells us.