MAYHEM Branding Colors: What Gives?

[Gaga Scholar 192]

This might be a dumb topic for some of you, but I’m curious regardless, and where else would I go to ask about it? 😂

What are your theories as to why the MAYHEM color scheme opened with orange and then transitioned to red? (Yes, “Lady in Red.” But why start with orange?!)

We were greeted with the orange Goosebumps-adjacent font and ended up with an Olde English script in red. 

Do you think this was intentional? Do you think this had to do with that band that threatened to sue for stealing their logo? Was it supposed to be a Halloween time marketing thing? 

Discuss. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Gaga Scholar

[Ziggy 12,973]

i think that Abracadabra took off in ways they didn't fully expect and most else followed suit/maybe a pivot after the logo lawsuit to avoid harping on that 

[nATAH 53,711]

it's something she's always done throughout her eras

born this way was initially black and white with a dash of red but transitioned into pinks, teals and greys

Spoiler

 into 

the fame monster started out gothic and very monochromatic/b+w but then suddenly telephone was absolutely not that + the tour was very colourful and neon

Spoiler

 into  and 

joanne started out baby blue and pink but then the tour was vibrant solid colours

Spoiler

 into 

chromatica made the big leap from science fiction hot pink gun metal to brutalist metallic concrete (with some sci fi left over)

Spoiler

 into 

ARTPOP and the fame were pretty consistent though, artrave still retained that party pink optical illusion theme and the fame was... well, the fame

it's nothing new for her, her eras tend to evolve

[ImMatt 1,953]

As a graphic designer, i LOVE this question...I think Gaga likes to associate two core colours with albums and black is a running theme across several. She's not used orange yet, but red she has and she wouldn't have wanted to double up with BTW:

TF: Blue & silver

TFM: Black & white

BTW: Black & red

ARTPOP: Pink and blue

Joanne: Pastel pink & pastel blue

Chromatica: Coral & green (I know people will say black & pink here, but the tour colours and lots of the album branding was coral and green)

Harlequin: Mint & red

Mayhem: Black & orange

 

The main colours she's yet to use is yellow and purple so my theory is her next era will include either of those.

Edited 10 hours ago by ImMatt

[Jill 31,007]

4 minutes ago, ImMatt said:

The main colours she's yet to use is yellow

omg bananas in pyjamas ost incoming? 

[Gaga Scholar 192]

14 minutes ago, ImMatt said:

As a graphic designer, i LOVE this question...I think Gaga likes to associate two core colours with albums and black is a running theme across several. She's not used orange yet, but red she has and she wouldn't have wanted to double up with BTW:

TF: Blue & silver

TFM: Black & white

BTW: Black & red

ARTPOP: Pink and blue

Joanne: Pastel pink & pastel blue

Chromatica: Coral & green (I know people will say black & pink here, but the tour colours and lots of the album branding was coral and green)

Harlequin: Mint & red

Mayhem: Black & orange

 

The main colours she's yet to use is yellow and purple so my theory is her next era will include either of those.

Thanks for your thoughtful response! Do you have any theories as to why she seemingly shifted from orange to red in the marketing during the era? 

Edited 10 hours ago by Gaga Scholar

[NemoMyName 1,686]

[TheFrenchGuy 3,803]

I think the biggest evolution always happens around the tour, probably because it forces her to really lean into the storytelling side of the album. With Mayhem, the branding felt very aligned with the music at first : analog crossed with artifice, raw grainy photos, industrial, gothic, and campy. Then the Ball took that aesthetic and pushed it further into the gothic direction to go with the theme of the show (opera), hence the script font and all the baroque-inspired ornaments. The same idea applies to all of her albums, especially Chromatica. 

Edited 9 hours ago by TheFrenchGuy

[bxr 1,034]

I really enjoy this discussion, and this concept in particular

1 hour ago, ImMatt said:

The main colours she's yet to use is yellow and purple so my theory is her next era will include either of those.

The yellow / purple progression could be an incredible segue / evolution into the next era … emerging, quite rhythmically, from the shadow of a man: “Hard to be the yellow in a purple sky (Sky) / Peekin' through the eye of the storm (Eye of the storm) / Gotta be the truth or you'll become a lie (Become a lie) / Piercing like your skin from a thorn (Oh, oh, I)” … and if the next album is a revival from mayhem’s proverbial ruins conquered, it would set quite a nice paradigmatic foundation for a sort of metamorphosis chrysalis break (also with potential echoes of certain maturation or incorporation of a more sovereign feminine identity a la shape of a woman), as yellow and purple are complementary, thus cancel each other out when mixed but express a more defined vibrance in their contrast when placed adjacent one another, so here, there could be a journey of definition from muted binding desolation to personal reclamation in distinction (or liberation or transcendence or etc.) … or some aspect of mayhem’s definitive deprivation overcome through LG8’s narrative

 

OT: I was just thinking about the color scheme for the album earlier when I gave mayhem an anniversary spin 😅 The album on the whole actually registered with a deeper sense of sympathetic resonance for the first time today, and, sort of riding in tandem with the sonic resonance, was this sense of a synesthetic parallel, the music felt more vibrant … like hmm … maybe a technicolor pitch or velvet blacklight … but it sounded much more nocturnal neon vibrance than the marketing campaign expressed, and I just thought to myself … that’s another nuanced non-musical something that felt missing within the mayhem campaign, was the maybe blithe or cognitive dissonance between sight and sound … maybe at a practical level, even if not intentional, it reflects a rupture between the music and marketing … which echoes a bit of the undercurrent narrative of the album itself about the divide between human artistry or identity (music, sound) and celebrity (marketing, visuals), if that makes any sense … also the cultural identity of black, white, and red (which were more pronounced since the tour) echo the american riddle “what’s black, white, and re(a)d all over?” “the newspaper“ (also, news / tabloid media are the sector of “if it bleeds, it leads” (the headlines)) so there might be subplot association with mayhem as incorporating commentary about idenity as a woman celebrity in the contemporary corporate consumer entertainment media culture

though, it would be kind of interesting if one of the supplemental mayhem-adjacent projects inverted the color scheme as a symbolic narrative plot device

[Anderson123 40,951]

1 hour ago, ImMatt said:

The main colours she's yet to use is yellow and purple so my theory is her next era will include either of those.

Hard to be the yellow in a purple sky. 

These pair of colors remind me of Rain On Me physical single, yellow boots, yellow Chromatica vinyl. 

She has been using a lot of purple this era with Killah, Zombieboy, etc and just the Prince inspired imagery. 
 

[LOVEDRUG 11,077]

To be honest, even moreso than Chromatica, this feels like an album where each song is a different colour. One look at the tour lighting tells you that. I don't think she's particularly pivoted towards red. She's pivoted towards using a lot of different colours (green for Zombieboy, red for Abracadabra, silver for Kill for Love and Shadow of a Man, purple for Killah).

Orange and black was never truly representative of the album's range.

[gagzus 18,037]

2 hours ago, nATAH said:

it's something she's always done throughout her eras

born this way was initially black and white with a dash of red but transitioned into pinks, teals and greys

  Hide contents

 into 

the fame monster started out gothic and very monochromatic/b+w but then suddenly telephone was absolutely not that + the tour was very colourful and neon

  Hide contents

 into  and 

joanne started out baby blue and pink but then the tour was vibrant solid colours

  Hide contents

 into 

chromatica made the big leap from science fiction hot pink gun metal to brutalist metallic concrete (with some sci fi left over)

  Hide contents

 into 

ARTPOP and the fame were pretty consistent though, artrave still retained that party pink optical illusion theme and the fame was... well, the fame

it's nothing new for her, her eras tend to evolve

Id argue The Fame started out very “New York” indie sleaze and nightlife inspired from Just Dance’s release but then turned into a more camp retro futuristic vibe by the time the tour hit Europe in 2009. And ARTPOP started out as more minimalistic technologic inspired until the album dropped when it turned into a more fantasy and mythology inspired.

i would however argue BTW was the only one that really stuck to it’s guns it started off fantasy and alien inspired and then ended as such when the tour was cancelled

Edited 8 hours ago by gagzus

[gagzus 18,037]

1 hour ago, Anderson123 said:

Hard to be the yellow in a purple sky. 

These pair of colors remind me of Rain On Me physical single, yellow boots, yellow Chromatica vinyl. 

She has been using a lot of purple this era with Killah, Zombieboy, etc and just the Prince inspired imagery. 
 

Purple and yellow were also popular colours during the peak of disco in the 1970s (even more so than silver which for some reason everyone associates disco with) so perhaps her next album is gonna be more TRADITIONAL disco? Blending rock, jazz, R&B and dance music which is what traditional disco was. 
 

maybe I’ve cracked the code 

Edited 8 hours ago by gagzus

[Gaga Scholar 192]

Thanks for humoring me, fam! Y’all are so smart and creative. ❤️

[TheARTPOPball 1,048]

I mean 

chromatica ball didn’t really match the album marketing. I was a bit confused when we were expecting intergalactic Gaga with pink hair and she showed up on the stage with blonde hair and silvers and reds, and went with red marketing, even though the tour ads were bright pink and green. 

neither did the Joanne world tour really..

id also say ARTRAVE is very much different color wise from the albums marketing, but more so the interludes, and lighting because the stage itself was perfect. 
 

it’s possible the tours are conceptualized after the albums and completely ignore any direction from the aesthetic of the era marketing.