having given you a taste over the last couple of weeks of what artworks are about and some of our previous designs for them, it’s time to show you the brand we’ve been developing for them. one of the challenges of branding is to gain an understanding of an organisation in a short space of time in order to try an encapsulate and embody their activities and ethos in a visual identity. our approach to this is often via a creative session, but in this case we had been working with artworks for several years and had a good understanding of what they’re about - we’d often acted in the role of ‘artist’ working in communities on several of their projects and so seen them in action from different perspectives as creatives and residents.
the key to continued success for artworks is to present themselves not as ‘those people who paint inner city murals’ but as a force for social change. art is the tool, transformation of communities is the end result. artworks reevaluated what it is they do and chose to portray four main areas of activity. a folder format was desired for the main promotional tool in order to be flexible in a wide range of situations - a standard format was also important due to budget and to ensure simple and affordable additions in the future. we suggested having colour-coded staggered inserts so all the areas of activity were available at a glance and could be used as a full pack or customised for one particular target audience. the colour coding extends to a strip of four blocks in which the colours alternate according to the content of the publication they’re used on.
as you can imagine an organisation that uses art, graffiti, rap, photography and performance in communities will have some fascinating images - but not always professional-standard photographs. these are often snatched shots, capturing a moment on a mobile phone or digital camera. the results are honest and vibrant but sometimes come with problems - especially people who would rather not have their image reproduced in publicity material. the design challenge therefore was to develop a way of using images that allowed for unusual crops without digitally manipulating images which we considered would be dishonest and contrary to artworks philosophy. the solution was partly inspired by bradford’s most famous son, david hockney and his photomontage work.
the photo grid system means that images can be interlocked in any variety of combinations - it’s a surprisingly organic way of working as the demands of the image often dictate there the resulting shape will flow. this in turn suggests how the rest of the document is laid out. one of the requirements of the brief was a brand that wouldn’t be too fixed and could evolve and be as creative as the organisation itself. we’re really enjoying using it on different designs and seeing how it adapts - we’ll post more examples as they’re done.
the rubber stamp on the reverse of this folder was originally developed as part of the identity to allow individual customisation of business card-booklets. it’s been extended to be used on envelopes and packages so the brand arrives before the contents are revealed.
