'I Gotcha!': How a Port Credit Studio Helped Bring The Sound Cafe Journal to Life

Stevie Connor
3 hours ago
5 min read

By Stevie Connor | The Sound Cafe Journal

'I Gotcha!': How a Port Credit Studio Helped Bring The Sound Cafe Journal to Life

There are moments when a project you've been working on for years suddenly becomes something you can actually hold in your hands.

For us at The Sound Cafe Journal, that moment arrived this week in the form of T-shirts, hoodies and business cards.

And, appropriately enough, it happened right here in Port Credit.

A few months ago, we made a pretty significant change to The Sound Cafe.

The name stayed.

The heart stayed.

The commitment to music stayed.

But the direction became clearer.

The Sound Cafe Journal was evolving into something deliberately different, a home for long-form music journalism, thoughtful storytelling and stories that aren't designed to be consumed in thirty seconds and forgotten thirty seconds later.

We redesigned our logo to reflect that change.

It needed to say something about where we'd come from, but more importantly, where we were going.

It wasn't simply a logo anymore.

It was becoming the visual identity of the Journal.

And now, for the first time, that identity has stepped off the screen.

When we decided we wanted some T-shirts and hoodies made, we wanted them to feel right.

Not cheap promotional merchandise.

Not something where a logo is simply slapped onto a shirt and sent in a box.

We wanted something that looked like The Sound Cafe Journal.

Something we'd be proud to wear.

Something that represented the brand we've spent so much time building.

So we spent quite a bit of time looking.

We considered various outlets, some here in Ontario and others elsewhere in Canada.

Then Anne found Key Studio, right here in Port Credit at 60a Lakeshore Road East, next to Indian by The Lake.

A couple of weeks ago, we wandered over.

And that's where we met Kobie Hasford.

We explained what we were trying to achieve.

We showed him the design.

We talked about the Journal, the rebranding, the direction we're taking and what we wanted the merchandise to look and feel like.

Kobie listened.

He looked at what we'd brought in.

He understood what we were trying to do.

And then came the response that, in hindsight, pretty much told us everything we needed to know.

“I gotcha!”

Sometimes you know you've found the right person simply because they understand what you're trying to say before you've finished saying it.

Kobie got it.

We picked everything up today.

And we couldn't be happier.

The quality is excellent. The logo came out cleanly and exactly the way we'd envisioned it, and the garments feel like something we'd actually want to wear, which, for us, was the whole point.

This wasn't about producing merchandise for the sake of having merchandise.

It was about taking an identity we'd spent months developing and getting it right when it finally moved from a computer screen onto something physical.

The process was straightforward, personal and, perhaps most importantly, local.

We found the pricing very reasonable, too.

And while we were there, we had our business cards produced as well.

There's something satisfying about that.

The Sound Cafe Journal may now be read in countries all around the world, but some of the things that help us represent it began just a few minutes from home.

That's something worth remembering.

In an increasingly anonymous world of online ordering, automated emails and packages arriving from who-knows-where, there is still something to be said for walking into a local business, talking to an actual person and explaining what you're trying to create.

Then hearing:

“I gotcha!”

And watching that idea become real.

For years, The Sound Cafe has existed primarily on screens.

Articles.

Interviews.

Photographs.

Recordings.

Archives.

Stories.

Thousands upon thousands of words documenting musicians, artists, festivals, communities and the people behind the music.

But something changes when the identity you've been building becomes tangible.

The Journal is stepping off the screen.

It's going to festivals.

It's going to concerts.

It's going into venues.

It's going into conversations.

And now, thanks to a talented local studio that understood what we were trying to accomplish, it's going there looking pretty damn good.

There's something wonderfully satisfying about that.

The timing couldn't be better.

We're heading to Summerfolk in Owen Sound next weekend, and these new shirts and hoodies will be making their first proper appearance.

That feels particularly fitting.

Summerfolk has already been part of The Sound Cafe's story.

It's the kind of festival that sits comfortably within the world we've been documenting for years, musicians, storytellers, artists, audiences, community and the shared understanding that music is about considerably more than a three-minute recording.

It's about people.

It's about place.

It's about history.

It's about the stories that happen between the songs.

And that's precisely where The Sound Cafe Journal wants to be.

We'll be there representing the Journal.

And now we'll actually be wearing it.

We don't normally write about where we get our business cards or T-shirts made.

But sometimes you come across a local business that deserves a mention.

Key Studio did exactly what we hoped they would do.

Kobie Hasford took the time to understand what we were looking for, gave us the confidence that he could deliver it, and then delivered.

That's worth something.

It is easy to forget, particularly when so much of our working life happens online, how valuable that human interaction can be.

You walk through a door.

You meet someone.

You explain an idea.

They listen.

And a couple of weeks later, you're standing there holding the finished product.

And you think: Yeah. That's exactly what we wanted.

There's a bigger point here, too.

If we want the communities around us to remain vibrant, independent and creative, we have to support the people who make those communities what they are.

Sometimes that means choosing the local business.

Sometimes it means choosing Canadian.

And sometimes it simply means walking through a door and giving someone nearby the opportunity to say, they understand.

The Sound Cafe has been evolving.

The rebranding to The Sound Cafe Journal wasn't simply a change of words.

It reflected a clearer understanding of what we've been building all along.

A place for long-form journalism.

A place for thoughtful interviews.

A place for archives and stories that deserve to remain accessible.

A place where music journalism doesn't have to race to keep up with the algorithm.

The new logo represents that evolution.

And now that logo is travelling with us.