Last night I was happy to accompany my boyfriend to the wrap party for the television show he works on here in Los Angeles. The venue was the Level 3 nightclub that’s part of the Hollywood and Highland complex, smack-dab in the middle of Hollywood. If you’ve ever watched the Academy Awards or footage of movie premiers in Hollywood, then you’ve probably seen the shopping complex I’m referring to. It’s one of the most trafficked areas of Hollywood by tourists and even locals, taking in the sites or shopping.
It’s actually an area of town I usually try to avoid even though it’s walking distance from my apartment because of the heavy foot traffic, movie star impersonators and bus tour salesmen. Not to mention, one of the main Hollywood hotels is attached to the complex and so I can only imagine that the majority of club goers at Level 3 are probably not locals. Well, needless to say, the wrap party was at Level 3 and I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Besides, they had rented out the entire place anyway so my usual concerns weren’t really applicable.
As my boyfriend and I exited the elevator onto the 3rd level of the complex (hence the club name “Level 3″), we were looking around to try to find the entrance. In just a few seconds, my boyfriend spotted it and started walking in that direction. When I realized what he had seen and why I had overlooked it, I immediately started laughing. The logo for Level 3 nightclub is the name of the club with a huge, back-lit, Times New Roman-esque, capital “V” over it. FAIL!
Now, I understand that the word “level” has the letter “v” in it and that it happens to be the center point of the word. However, the designer (or whoever made the call on the logo) completely disregarded the fact that the letter “v” is also the Roman numeral for the number five. Furthermore, not only did they disregard it, but they made it the largest character of the entire logo. In my opinion, that’s a complete design fail. First, because the club’s name contains the number three. Second, because the number three in the club’s name holds significance to the physical location of the club (being on the 3rd floor of a five-floor complex). While entering the club, we also were given complimentary parking validation tickets that were basically Level 3 business cards, so I had even more time to soak up their awesome logo. All I could see was the Roman numeral for five.
Chances are most patrons probably don’t have a problem locating the club, but if it were my decision I would never have approved the logo design. It just comes off as unintelligent (therefore not very classy) and in a way, really lowered my expectations of the place before I had even entered the venue. They already weren’t that high considering the location, but the logo fail was definitely the icing on the cake.





