Chapter 21

Not knowing whether the traffic there would be good or bad, the CJDL team, complete with Paula, had arrived at the airport to greet the Northern Girls quite a bit early, to then discover that the flight was running about 45 minutes late.

"Seems to me that we could this extra time we have to let Linda have a word with the press out there," suggested Paige. "I'm sure they'd like to know a bit more... although I did count at least 3 crews."

"Sounds fine by me" replied Linda. Whilst she had done the stream last night, she knew that the press would want to actually speak to her. "... although having to repeat myself 3 or more times isn't so appealing."

"Hmm, I have an idea," suggested Carol, "kinda like what we did in Korea: I'll offer to interview you for all of them. And if they have extra questions, I can put them to you. One good interview, rather than many bored ones. And it's not like I've never interviewed anyone." Carol was referring to the fact that she had not only joined Tom on his show on many occasions now, and effectively interviewed a LOT of callers, she had even sat in for Tom for a couple of days when he had been ill... and taken the opportunities to speak to (or 'interview') several other well known pop stars.

So, Paige, Brian, Carol and Linda walked over to the now 4 waiting camera crews, persuading them to join them in a slightly quieter area. Paula held slightly back, to get more general shots. She had put small audio recorders onto Linda and Brian, to capture extra audio: her own camera would also be recording the audio.

Paige introduced herself. "So, you are all aware of Linda's news last night, and we know you all want to get an interview with her. And whilst those of you who get the first interviews will be happy, the latter ones will be less good, as Linda starts to get a bit bored with it all. So we have an idea. One interview for you all... but that gives you the problem of who would carry out the interview.... Carol, over to you!"

"Hi everyone, always nice to meet you guys, especially when you are good to us! So here's my suggestion: I'll interview Linda for you. I know her story, and will ask the questions in a way that Linda might be much more willing to answer. At the end, if I've missed anything, then you can give me the questions, and I can ask them, and you can edit them in how you like. That way you all get a good fresh interview, and I'm sure your viewers will be happy to see me doing the interviewing. So, what do you think?"

There was a bit of discussion, but in the end the consensus was to go with her suggestion. Carol spent a few minutes with the presenters explaining what she'd be asking Linda about, and a couple of them came up with a couple more good questions. Once again, Paula stood back from the group so that she could film what was happening more generally: they would be able to get the actual news footage form the relevant companies later on.

"Hi everyone," started Carol, "I'm Carol from CJDL, and I'm here with Linda, and we thought that, while we wait for Northern Girls to arrive, I could ask her a few questions about the announcement she made online last night. So, hello there, Linda! Now, let's start at the start: what was your big news last night?"

The cameras were now panning over and zooming in to Linda, who smiled pleasantly for the cameras, shwing off her lovely metallic smile. "Well, I have a new boyfriend. His name is Zac, and he is a graphic designer."

"So, tell us the story about how you met him..."

Linda summarised the story that we all know well now, with Carol asking a couple of questions to get a few more details. Effectively Linda repeated what she and Zac had said the previous evening on the stream.

"So, where's he from? And does he have any brothers or sisters?" One advantage with Carol asking the questions was that she knew that Linda would be ok answering them, so would give good positive answers, rather than trying to evade the question, which never looked good on TV.

"His parents live in Carshalton, and before you ask, no I've not met them yet... and for that matter, he's not met my parents either!" she said with a slight giggle. "And yes, he has a sister, she's about 4 years older than him, and apparently works as a 'retail manager' somewhere in South London, and lives in the wider Croydon area, kinda like us."

"So, last night he met all of us, everyone in the band, plus a few others: how did he feel about that?" Linda explained how, initially he had said he wasn't into girl bands, and how she had jokingly called him her 'anti-fan' on their first meeting... but how, having heard the band's new album, he was a lot more accepting of their music style. "But I think he quite enjoyed meeting everyone last night, by the end of the evening he seemed quite relaxed."

"Oooh, you mentioned the new album there: are we allowed to say anything about that, do you think?" asked Carol. She was definitely into territory where, had this been a normal interview, the response would have been a 'sorry, not something I can really talk about'. But they had decided to talk a bit about it, without really giving too much away.

"Well, in the same way that the last album was a bit of a change from what you guys had been doing before, I think our fans should expect another change, although maybe not QUITE as big a change. I've had a lot of input into this new album, I fully wrote or partly wrote quite a few of the songs, and I think you're seeing my musical tastes come through. But I think they are all still recognisable as being CJDL songs."

"Any idea when it's going to be released? And what news of a new single?" These, again, were a couple of questions that they knew the press would like, and had decided to give them a bit of a teaser.

"I believe the album will be out a few weeks before we go on tour. As for the single, I can't say a lot right now, but it is a song that I wrote, and it's going to be a bit different in terms of the 'pacing' of the song, but everyone who has heard it so far seems to like it. And I guess it will also get released before we go on tour, because I don't know about you Carol, but I want to be able to sing it when we're on tour as our single! So, when it's out, remember to buy it and stream it!"

"Ok, here's an interesting question, it came from one of the TV interviewers over there: as the 'new girl' in the band, do you still feel like you're the new girl?"

Linda smiled. "Yeah, nice question. And the answer is actually very easy: no, I really feel like I'm one of the band now. You guys were always good to me, but while we've been writing and recording the new album, there's never been any feeling that I'm anything but part of CJDL. So, I guess you guys are stuck with me for now!"

"Linda, thank you so much for answering my questions so candidly!"

"My pleasure, Carol, it's been fun." She paused a moment, then turned to the reporters. "Look, Tom and Ben - that's Jenny and Carol's boyfriends - are really appreciative of the privacy you afford them when they aren't with us. Please can I ask you to extend the same courtesy to Zac? I know you'd all have liked to have met Zac today, but he has to work, kinda like the rest of us. But I promise I'll organise a way for you guys to meet him sometime soon! Thanks!". Everyone seemed to be ok with that.

"Can I ask one more simple question?" asked one of the reporters.

"Sure, fire away! replied Carol.

"Well, it's more to do with the tour than with Linda: any ideas yet what the shape of the performances will be like?"

Carol, Linda and Brian had a very quick chat. "I'm afraid it's going to be a bit of a non-answer, but let's do it." Carol and Linda got themselves back into position.

"Linda, a quick question about our tour: do we know yet what's going to happen in the performances?"

"I'm afraid not, that's one of the first things we'll be working on with Northern Girls in the next week or two. However, there's no way it's going to be two separate performances: we've already decided that we want to all perform together, as well as alone, but beyond that we just haven't decided." Linda paused and turned to the reporter who had asked the question. "That a good enough answer for you?"

"Yup, that's fine. I must admit, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you girls all do, I think it's going to be quite interesting!"

The TV crews all went away happy: whilst they had all just recorded the same interview, their questions had all be answered, and in a few cases, in more depth than they might have otherwise been answered.

Carol felt quite chuffed that she had clearly done an acceptable interview: maybe it was something she could do a bit more for the band. In fact, it was something that she repeated less than an hour later... In the meantime, Carol and Linda joined Jenny and Dianne, who were chatting with a small group of fans. After giving some of them their autographs, they too had a chat with them... and yes, Linda got loads of questions about Zac. But Linda didn't mind: unlike the press, these were the people that directly supported the band, by buy concert tickets and merchandise, and paying for their records. People a bit like she had been up until a year ago.


Finally, after a couple of cups of coffee and, and after a 45 minute delay (something to do with the jet-stream winds not being as strong as normal) Northern Girls arrived, and came into the arrivals area. Whilst everyone else was kept back, our four girls went over to Taylor, Kate, Meg and Erin, and hugged them. Paula was nearby, and filmed it all.

"It's great to see you all again!" said Linda.

"And you too... so, we're finally here! The roller-coaster is about to depart!" replied Kate.

"Yeah, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun!"


Having got pictures of the 4 Canadian girls actually arriving, as a result of Carol's earlier help, the TV crews quickly went to a quieter area where our 4 CJDL members brought the 4 Northern Girls. Brian had spoken with their entourage, including their manager, Andre, and they were all keeping themselves slightly out of the way of the cameras: they knew how important this publicity was.

Three of the camera crews had a sound guy, with a boom mic, so Carol just had to hold two radio mics in her hand.

"Hi everyone, I'm Carol, from CJDL, and I'm here with the other three members of my band to welcome the 4 ladies from Northern Girls to England! Hi ladies!" There was a big cheer, not just from the 8 ladies themselves, but also the crowd that had gathered. "I guess the first thing I should do is to get these ladies to introduce themselves...". As the four Canadian ladies introduced themselves, they all smiled, letting everyone see the shiny metalwork on their teeth. Clearly, at some point, they would need to address 'the elephant in the room': why did 8 pop stars all have braces? But Carol had decided that this would NOT be mentioned today: Northern Girls (and CJDL for that matter) needed to have a good, simple, and easily acceptable story. Without a certain level of planning, awkward questions might get asked, and embarrassment caused.

"So you're in England now to prepare for our European tour" Carol asked Taylor, the leader of the 4 ladies.

"That's right. We just finished recording our new album, but I think we've all got a lot of work ahead of us to get ready for this tour!"

"How was the recording?"

"Yeah, a few issues, if only because our producer wanted it to be 'just right', but otherwise it all went ok."

"Any plans to 'pop back home' before the actual tour?"

"I suspect we might, but that would just be for a few days. There's a lot to do, and we're used to being away from home." replied Taylor,.

"Any time for a bit of sightseeing maybe?"

"I hope so! Doing what we do is actually not a lot different from what most people do, we work hard during the days while preparing for a tour, so we need a few days off every so often. And I know there's so much to see here in London and nearby..."

Carol chatted to the other band members for several minutes, then turned to the TV crews: "Any other questions?". There were a couple, and Linda asked them. Again, the TV crews were appreciative of what Carol had done.

"I'm impressed, Carol." commented Andre. "That worked really well, and got it all over with quite quickly!"

"Yeah, I did one with Linda earlier too. But I suspect we'll have a few more interviews to do between now and the start of the tour!"




[30/5580]

Chapter 23


"Hey, Linda, you got anything planned for tonight?" asked Jenny.

"No, why?"

"Well, Ben and I were going to team up with Taylor and Phil, and go out for a nice meal. Just wondering if you and Zac want to join us. I was going to tip Sarah off, let her and her pap friends get some pics, so it would be a great opportunity to introduce Zac to them."

"Good idea! Let me call Zac, see if he's up for it....". She got her phone out and called Zac. "Hey, Zac, would you like to come out with us for dinner tonight?" Linda asked Zac.

"Who's us, then?"

"Jenny and Ben, plus Taylor and her boyfriend Phil. It's actually a good opportunity for you to finally 'meet the press'... because it won't just be you they're interested in!"

"Hmmm..." commented Zac.

"Look, Zac, if you're wanting to go out with me, you're going to have to accept that the press and photographers are part of my life. And our experience is that things always work out better when we're upfront, and proactively give them photo ops."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Doesn't make it any less scary though!"

"Don't worry about it, we've got to know most of them now, especially Sarah's friends, and they are actually nice guys. So, you up for it?"

"Sarah? Who's she?"

"A very friendly photographer: in the same way we give Tom quite a few exclusives for the radio, we  give Sara first dibs on some good photo ops, like tonight. Don't worry, she's very much on our side. Ages ago, Jenny had her long hair cut, ended up being an ambassador for a wigs charity, and Sarah did a load of stuff for the charity for free - big win-win for everyone involved. So, yeah, Sarah's one of the 'good guys'!"

"So, yeah, I guess so. So where, when, and what sort of dress code?"

"Here at the mansion, we'll organise transport from here. Can you make it for say 6-30? And smart casual, what you wore out when I treated everyone would be just right..."

"Can you make it, say, 6-45, give me time to get home and change. I mean, I have my hair and makeup to do too!" he said, pulling Linda's leg.

Linda laughed. "Just trying to imagine you in makeup, to the level we wear on stage..." Linda smiled at the thought. "Ok, 6-45 is fine! See you later.... love you!"

"Umm...."

"Go on, say it, it won't hurt you!"

"I'm at work..."

"Yeah, so am I! Come on...."

"Ok... I love you too...." said Zac softly.



Zac arrived a few minutes early, and Linda introduced him to the Northern Girls. They had organised themselves into small groups of 4 and 6 to go out for meals tonight, in different places.

Jenny had spoken with Sarah, to tip her off about where they would be, so she would be waiting with a small group of paps, ready to take their pictures. Clearly, they would be interested in Taylor, as well as Linda and Zac.

An UberXL arrived soon after, and they all went off to their restaurant. Jenny messaged Sarah on the way, so they could all be waiting for them when they arrived.


Sarah was waiting with 3 other photographers where Jenny had told them they would arrive. The Uber pulled up, and Jenny was the first to get out, along with Ben. They waited a moment to let the small group of paps get ready for them.

"Hi everyone! Nice to see you all." The cameras started clicking. "Ok, so name checks, wouldn't want you getting them wrong, would we? So, you know me and Ben by now, so let me introduce you to Taylor, and her boyfriend Phil: she's the 'frontman' for Northern Girls...".

Taylor got out of the Uber with Phil, and they stood there letting the team take their photos. "Hi guys, nice to meet you. I'll guess you must be Sarah... you're the only lady here!"

"Hi Taylor! Yes, that's me!" replied Sarah.

"And now, the couple I suspect you REALLY want to meet. CJDL member Linda, and her new boyfriend, Zac!". Jenny had got good at introducing people.

Linda and Zac got out, and stood there, letting the team take their photos. "Ok, Zac, we need to give then something worthwhile!" said Linda quietly to Zac. Linda knew that they wanted something a 'bit more interesting than just standing there', so she started by putting her arm around Zac, and giving him a bit of a hug - she could hear the cameras working hard. Next she put her hand up to Zac's face, and smiled. "Go on, give them a nice smile!". Finally, she moved in for a kiss, which she held, to make sure they all got some good pictures.

"So, Zac, say hi to Sarah, she's the one that organised this reception for us. Oh, and that's  Bill, and that's Sanjay... you'll get to know them after a bit!". Linda waved at them all.

"So, you guys gonna be ok with the same 'rules' for Zac as you do for Ben and Tom... so leave him alone when he's not with me?" The team of paps agreed.

"Thanks guys, I'm still very new to all this... so go gently on me, will you?" said Zac, trying to break the ice a little. More clicks.

"Can we have some pics of you three girls, please?" asked Sarah.

"But of course..." They got themselves into position, then had a bit of fun. "Hey, faces together and smile, girls!" suggested Jenny. The three of them smiled, letting the paps see their metallic smiles.

"That's a lot of metal you have there!" said Bill.

"You sound like you understand braces there, Bill..."

"Oh, my teen daughter has them, not over keen on them. So yeah... as I said, a lot of metal."

"If you think we have a lot of metal, wait till you see the other five. We all have braces!"

"Eight girls with braces: that's gonna be quite some sight!" said Bill.

Something clicked in Jenny's mind. She looked at Linda and Taylor. "Eight girls in Braces?... that could be a good name for the band! Thanks for the idea, Bill!"

"It's gonna cost you...."

"Tell you what, how about we do a selfie with you for your daughter? And we'll record you a video message for her too."

Bill smiled. "Oh, she'd LOVE that! She's a big fan....".

"Ok, Sarah, want to take some pics, pass them on to Bill?". The three girls gathered around Bill, so that Sarah - and the others - could take pics. "So, what's your daughter called?" asked Jenny.

"She's called Lily."

"Lily... nice name.... Ok, Bill, ready?". Bill got his camera ready to record video, and nodded. "Ok, so hello there, Lily, I'm Jenny, and this is Linda, and we're half of CJDL. And this lady is Taylor, she's the frontman of Northern Girls, I suspect you'll be seeing a lot more of her in the next month or two. So, your dad - Bill - has come here to take our pics, and he told us that you have braces too, but aren't so keen on them. Well, we're here to tell you that braces are actually very cool, and you should never be ashamed of showing them off, be proud of having them! Besides, they aren't forever, and when you're done, you'll have an amazing smile!" With that, all three of them smiled at the camera, once more showing off their metal smiles, then finished by waving at the camera.

"Thank you, Jenny, she's gonna be amazed when I show that to her! Thanks!"

"Ok, guys, we need to get going, I'm sure we'll be seeing you all again soon! And remember to give Zac his space, will you..."



"So, Ben, you've obviously been through all this: what am I letting myself in for?" asked Zac over dinner.

"Well, for a start, you can expect to see those pictures in the papers and online over the next few days. To be honest, from what I saw, there's nothing there to be ashamed of. If you bump into any of the paps, just be nice to them, and remind them if needed about not taking your picture. I've actually had a couple of nice chats with some of them: at the end of they day, they just need to do their job, same as the girls have to do their job. When you're with Linda, trust Linda: I've seen her handle the press, and she seems to have got pretty good at it."

"Do you ever get people in the street coming up to you?"

"Not all that often. If I've got the time, then I'll maybe have a quick chat to them. If I'm busy, I'll kinda acknowledge them and continue on, but being polite. Oh, by the way, if you get any problems, public or paps, do let us know. Take their picture if you need to. I had a bit of an issue with a photographer from one of the dailies in the early days: Jennifer just kicked him and his reporter out of their next press conference, making it clear why! No real issues since then."

"Yeah, Linda told me about that one. So what sort of stuff can I expect when I'm with Linda?"

"Depends on what she's doing. When they go and 'meet the fans', then the fans are mainly there for them, but may want to take some pics of you as a couple. Be nice to them, make their day, and they'll love you for it. One of the things I often do is to help 'organise' their fans, maybe taking pics with their cameras for them - although Paige tends to do that if she's there."

"If in doubt, just ask me..." said Linda. "As far as official photographers go, we can usually guess where they will be, so we always try to build in a few minutes for them. If we just bump into someone, then we'll give them some time if we can: most of them really appreciate that, take their pics quickly, and let us get on with things. So, yeah, it was weird for me at first, but I'm pretty used to it now. Although, if you need to speak to an expert, then speak to Jenny!"

"When Ben's with me, he just assumes that we will get 'accosted' by someone at some point. If we have time, we'll stop briefly - our fans are important, and without them, we'd have no tour... and without the tour, we'd be pretty poor!"

"Don't you get money from selling CDs and streaming..."

"Yes, now we're more successful, it's better, but is still quite small compared to what a tour can bring in...." explained Jenny.

"This next tour is going to be a big one, the money involved is what you'd expect to see in a medium sized business." explained Ben. "Do the maths: ticket price times size of audience is a BIG number. But there's a LOT of expenditure too. But at the end of it all, the band is going to - hopefully - make some serious money... which will pay for all of our time over the last few months working on their music, plus the next couple of months getting ready before the tour, and the 3 months ON the tour. And I'm sure they are going to need some 'down-time' afterwards... they usually do!"

Linda thought about that: yes, she'd definitely have (more like NEED!) a few weeks off, and then she might be working on 'Singer behind the Mask'... Yes, she really WAS hoping they would let her do that, it would be so different, but the idea of her being solo, no band to work with, well that was actually a bit scary!

"So, yes, your life will be different, but take it in your stride, and you may find you enjoy the experience. At the end of the day, I guess it's all part of the 'going out with Linda' package! By the way, if you need any help, or want to talk, I'm here for you, and I'm sure Tom would be ok too."

"So Taylor, what's it like for you guys over in Canada?" asked Zac

"I get the feeling we do things a bit differently. We don't interact with our fans like these guys do. And watching these two handle the photographers earlier, wow, that was an eye-opener for me! Maybe we four need to get trained up by these girls!"

As they chatted, they exchanged stories about fans, performances, dealing with the press and TV.

"So, Zac, how are you feel about going on TV with Linda then?" asked Ben.

"TV? You kidding me?"

"No. I'm sure they'd love to have you. I've been on TV with Jennifer a couple of times, and it was ok."

"I'm assuming they'll want us to go on TV at some point?" asked Taylor.

"Yes, there was talk about maybe next week, all eight of you, but still waiting to hear. They don't know what they are letting themselves in for, do they? So, by then, we'll need to have a group name, and the name for the tour. We'll probably get Carol to tell the world on Tom's show."

"Ah, yes, he's a DJ on a local station, isn't he?"

"That's right. I know he'd like you four to join him in the studio sometime..." said Ben.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Carol will be there too," explained Linda, "in fact she'll probably be the one talking with you most of the time. She often sits in with Tom during his show, and even did a couple of the shows when he got ill - with a bit of help of course! Probably one of the more relaxed bits of radio you'll get to do!"

"Yeah, we have a good relationship with a couple of the guys at CBKZ, our local station."



[32/5906]

How odd, I thought I had already posted chapter 25, which is the last chapter. That's what happens as you get older, you start to forget things, or miss things!

-----------------

Chapter 25

Zac joined everyone for dinner the following evening: Linda was really trying hard in her relationship with Zac, and would have just gone out with him for the evening, but was rather tired after a busy day.

"So, Linda told me you were trying to decide whether you want to keep or change your logo..."

"Yes, I'm divided right down the middle: part of me want to remain 'loyal' to our existing logo, the other half is thinking that maybe it's time for an upgrade!" commented Carol.

"Well, I hope you don't mind, but I've been thinking about logos for you, and had a word with my boss, with the result that he let me spend the afternoon coming up with some very basic ideas. They are nowhere near finished images... how do I describe it? Well, I guess if you guys are looking to come up with a new song, you'll maybe grab a guitar, and start strumming, see what tunes, what words come into your heads. Or maybe like Linda out for a chinese meal with her friends, and she starts thinking about ideas for a song about her friends. What you have is little ideas, concepts, there's a lot more work to be done before you have an actual finished song. Or logo..."

"Ok, that makes a lot of sense. So I know how I write a song, so how does a graphic designer come up with a logo?" asked Jenny.

"Well, a lot is going to depend on exactly what you are working on. Let's take a sports shoe company: they need a logo that has no relationship to their company name, but gives out the 'ethos' of what that company is about... so we'd probably run a couple of 'brainstorming sessions' with the customer. Find out who their target customer is: young or old. What values do those people have, and that sort of thing..."

"So, I guess you're talking about the 'Nike tick' sort of thing?"

"Yeah, exactly who I was thinking about, I'm sure they spent a LOT of time understanding what their business is about. But for you guys, that's not really so relevant."

"How so?"

"Well, YOU are the product. We KNOW who you are. We KNOW your target audience and so on. You have a band name which really HAS to be part of any logo you use..."

"Ah, yes, right...."

"So, I went back to basics, and just let my mind go wild, tried to come up with a few different ideas. I'm thinking that maybe I can plug a USB stick into your TV after we've finished in here, and walk you through what I did..."

"Hey, Zac, thank you!" said Linda. "It's odd, and I suspect it's like this for all of us, but it's not often I get to see what someone I know actually DOES in their job! So I'm looking forward to see what you have come up with!"


So, maybe an hour later, they have all settled into the lounge, and Callum has set up the usb stick in the TV, and passed the control over to Zac. "Ok, so, do you guys remember what your first band logo was?" asked Zac.

"Well, pretty similar to what we have now, I guess!" replied Dianne.

"Bzzzt! Sorry, wrong answer!" said Zac, smiling. "Think back a bit...."

There was silence as everyone thought. Callum smiled, because he'd already seen the image that Zac was about to show.

"Half a moment, you're not thinking back to when we were 'Just Three Girls' are you?" asked Jenny.

Zac smiled. "Well remembered, Jenny! I did a bit of digging online, and found THIS...". He showed a picture of a an old poster, with a simple logo for 'Just Three Girls'. The next image was a closeup, the last one was an aspect corrected view, that showed the logo nice and square.

"Wow, nice one, Zac! I'd forgotten all about that one..." said Carol.

"It's very simple, only just a logo, rather than simply words. I'm guessing knocked up buy a friend at school or college who could draw a little. But it does it's job! So, why DID you change the name?"

"I think that might have been me" said Brian. "I guess my thinking was that it was a big 'generic' for a band. Needless to say it was Jenny that came up with 'CJD'!"

"Well, I think she did well. Yes, I think you were right Brian, 'Just Three Girls' is a bit generic. Nice, but still generic. Ok, so this is the earliest CJD logo I was able to find, and as you said, Dianne, not THAT different from what you have now, apart form the added 'L' for Linda." The next picture showed the current 'CJDL' logo. "Ok, so I decided to do two things. The first was to play with the current logo, see what simple tweaks I could do. After that, I just went 'blue sky', and let my mind wander. Kinda like Linda at the restaurant!"

The next few images took the existing logo, played with different colours (rather than the simple black currently used). He paused at one where he put the four girls faces into the letters.

"A interesting idea, but doesn't actually work that well... but you never know till you try it, do you?"

"Hey, just like writing a song! Tell you what, I'm looking forward to seeing your new ideas..."

"Well, that's what we're going to next. So, think of these as very raw ideas, concepts. Maybe you like a specific idea. Maybe you think that 2 of the ideas could be merged. Maybe you like the image, but not the colours. I'm kinda hoping that at the end of this, if nothing else, you'll know whether you want to keep your current logo, of do something new: if that's all I do tonight, then this work will have been worth it!"

Zac showed the girls maybe 30 very simple ideas, very quick sketches if you will, all very different. "So, I then looked at those, and chose 4 of them, to go a bit further. Still very raw, but a bit more developed...". Zac showed them more pictures, and was watching the girl's reactions as he displayed the different images.

"So, I took that last idea, and went a bit further...." This time, the logo incorporated their their upper bodies, then a version with just their faces. "Of course, once you HAVE a logo, you can do some silly things, just for one purpose... maybe for a specific tour..." The last image was very similar to the previous one, with their faces in the logo. Except this time they were all smiling, and showing off their braces! There were smiles and giggles all around.

"Hey, Zac, thanks for doing that!" said Ben, "Some VERY different ideas there. Jenny, you weren't sure the other day about the logo, has this helped you in any way?"

"Yeah, Zac, that was very thought provoking, and my thoughts now... yes, I think it IS time for a change. I'd like to go through those again tomorrow, try and work out which bits of what I like..."

"You know, you're right, it DOES feel like the way we create our music, and what you showed us, well, an interesting set of ideas." said Carol. "I'm with Jenny though, it's made me be 100% certain that we need a new logo for the band. Dianne? You were not so sure the other day..."

"So what's the next step then?" asked Ben.

"We need to make it official: I'll get your initial ideas, then get a couple of the other guys to add their ideas in, then get you over to meet everyone and see what they have done. I'm assuming there's no problems with... well, paying us for our work?"

========

So, looks like the band will have a nice new logo for their tour!

With Northern Girls now joining our 4 ladies, I'll end this story about Linda, and move the story over to a new one, called 'CJDL on Tour', which will follow the band's journey through the tour preparations, and into their tour.



[34/6283]