Today's ON SPEC entry is highlighting the Youtube channel Throttle House. Throttle House is a popular automotive YouTube channel known for its engaging and entertaining content, focusing on car reviews, comparisons, and performance testing.
I discovered Throttle House during the pandemic and was instantly hooked. Fortunately, I had a considerable backlog of videos to go through. I was drawn to the dynamic and charismatic hosts, Thomas and James. Their passion and knowledge for cars translate even to someone like myself, who, although loves cars, wouldn't consider myself a "car guy." They make a world as complicated as cars accessible to everyone, and their banter and friendly ribbing create a unique dynamic in a world as saturated as car-centric YouTube content. Their videos are also filmed beautifully and offer super high-resolution views of the awesome cars as well as drone-captured b-roll and action shots.
But, you guessed it, the branding for Throttle House doesn’t quite live up to all of these amazing things I just listed about the company. The automotive world has such a rich visual history, so I thought I would inject some of that DNA into the Throttle House brand by looking back to decades like the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Vintage F1 and rally posters, checkered flags, Steve McQueen, Le Mans. All of these things evoke the romanticism of what it feels like to get behind the wheel of these beautiful machines and burn some rubber. For the logo, the T and H letterforms combine to form a (figurative) representation of a classic manual gearbox. As for the brand color, for some reason, no color conjures the feeling of speed and power like red, so Rosso Corsa it is. (not literally since I’m sure that is copyrighted by Ferrari). I was also able to pull certain running jokes and bits from the videos like their pair of 80s tuners named Toe Foo and Schnitz and James’ incredibly unique catchphrase "…and I’m James." All of these pieces come together to form a visual identity that is singular to Throttle House.
I was able to send Throttle House a message through the contact portal of their website, but who knows where those messages really even go! If anyone has a more direct line of contact with them, please let me know. This identity was such a rich sandbox to get to play in, and I’d love for it to be used in an official capacity so I may have the chance to play some more.
Thanks and see you for the next one!
- Cody
