The prolific and legendary collaboration of John Lennon and Paul McCartney penned more than 180 songs from 1962 to 1969. Classics such as “Hey Jude,” “Let it Be,” “In My Life, “All You Need Is Love,” and “Yesterday” ….comprise the Northern Songs Lennon & McCartney song catalog, owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. One year ago today Sony named full-service global branding, licensing and rights management company Epic Rights as one of the catalog’s global licensing agents.
Epic Rights is a full-service merchandise, branding/licensing and social media marketing company focused on building music artist and entertainment brands via its broad global network of retailers, licensees and agents. They created the Lyrics by Lennon & McCartney licensing program that would feature iconic lyrics of many of the duo’s most popular songs into licensed products across multiple consumer goods categories.
Lennon-McCartney songs have become social anthems for multiple generations. The legacy of their compositions is untold as there is likely no musician alive today who was not in some way influenced by their work. Their music and lyrics collaboration gave birth to generations of songwriting partnerships, influencing bands to write and perform their own music rather than relying on dedicated songwriters. This was just one small example of how the Lennon-McCartney legacy transformed the music landscape.
Against this backdrop of iconic pop culture and musical legends, Epic Rights tasked the Graphic Element to create a comprehensive retail brand guide highlighting the various licensing categories that would feature the the lyrics.
The lyrics of Lennon & McCartney are so powerful and conjure up such a vast array of visual imagery, it was difficult to choose the ones to highlight in the guide. We relied on the expertise of the brand managers at Epic Rights to guide us in the right direction for lyric and song choices.
Our design approach was to capture the feeling of the 60’s from the start, by paying homage to the great Peter Max. The cover and page layouts boast bright colors and iconic designs from the flower power era.
Along with the design of the guide itself, we were also called upon to create unique lyric t-shirt artwork. Wearing words and sayings are hugely popular with both millennials and baby boomers. Who better to “quote” than one of the most influential writing teams in history?
Our last task was to create some housewares inspiration. The idea behind creating product mock-up inspiration is to spark the imagination of potential buyers to demonstrate what can be done with a particular license. This is always a favorite project for our designers.
According to Rod Kotler, vice president, merchandise and consumer products, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, “Dell Furano and the Epic Rights team understand the importance of these lyrics, lyrics that live well beyond the songs that first delivered them.”
From the birth of the beloved concert tee, Epic Rights’ unique understanding of what music fans want has culminated into a global empire that extends the reach of music brands, connects fans with their favorite icons, and immortalizes the enduring legacy of American popular culture.
We are deeply honored to be a small part of the Epic Rights music revolution.
