Explorers Club turned Coca-Cola's Arden Square into a portal for its record label

A new record label needed a brand world that could carry the cultural weight of Coca-Cola's legacy while feeling native to music, entertainment and fandom.

The 1969 Arden Square reimagined as the 'Arden Portal' — the red frame becomes a tunnel anchoring a sound-reactive generative identity in motion and sound.

A dynamic logo system, sound-reactive generative motion and social direction, with imagery shot and produced by Explorers Club across two live-show shoots at London's House of KOKO, including the Coca-Cola Recording Studio inside the venue.

The label debuted with two emerging artists — French-New Zealand singer-songwriter Max Allais and Indian artist Aksomaniac — and the system positions rtr as 'a cultural link between music and the people who move it forward'.

LBB reported on 2025-06-10 that Explorers Club Studio partnered with The Coca-Cola Company and Universal Music Group to launch the brand identity for Real Thing Records (rtr), a new label dedicated to uplifting burgeoning artistry from around the world and forging deeper connections between artists and fans.

The creative foundation draws on Coca-Cola's iconic Arden Square, first introduced in 1969 as the bold red frame for the brand's script. Reimagined as the 'Arden Portal', the square becomes a conceptual and visual tunnel into the heartbeat of fans and artists, anchoring a generative identity expressed through motion, sound and layered storytelling, with a dynamic logo system and sound-reactive generative motion at every touchpoint.

Explorers Club co-founder and creative director Aaron Skipper said the partnership set out 'to create an identity for the future of music, entertainment and fandom', honouring Coca-Cola's legacy through 'an evolving system driven by sound-reactive generative motion'. Imagery was shot at live shows in London's House of KOKO, home to the Coca-Cola Recording Studio, and the label debuted with French-New Zealand pop singer-songwriter Max Allais and Indian artist Aksomaniac, who blends jazz, R&B and hip-hop with his Carnatic roots.

The Arden Square gave a 2025 label 56 years of visual equity — a frame everyone can recognise, repurposed as a portal rather than a border.

A sound-reactive generative system fits a record label: the identity literally behaves like music instead of sitting still on a slide.

Shooting at House of KOKO tied the identity to real fandom moments, feeding the system with authentic live imagery from launch.

A heritage brand entering a new culture can lend its oldest asset: reframe a 1969 logo device as a doorway for others, instead of drawing something new.

As of the June 2025 launch, the system covered strategy, design and social direction for rtr, debuting with Max Allais and Aksomaniac and framing the label as a bridge between The Coca-Cola Company's legacy and emerging artists.