thud. that’s the sound of may’s renaissance news hitting doormats with the latest news from scarborough’s urban renaissance initiative.

kapow! that’s the sound of scarborough’s cultural explosion as documented in the centrespread by the arts and culture forum.

ping. that’s the light switching on in people’s heads as they realise what a culturally vibrant part of britain we live in.

we were invited to design a new visual identity and promotional material for the 2008 festival after being recommend by an existing client and winning a competitive pitch. we took two starting points for a design concept that runs through all the material - the first was the lure of a relaxing weekend by the sea, settling down to hear the authors themselves rather than just reading a book, this led to the deckhair-book illustration. the second was inspiration from the paperbook format itself. thus the brochure is the same size as the first mass-market paperbacks and pays homage to their distinctive graphic style.

the conceit of holding a book and not just a programme followed through into the printing - we specified a coated thin card cover with uncoated interior pages to give the same feel as a paperback. colour-coding indicates the different days of the festival. additional information such as day ticket prices are designed as if real objects left on the page of the book.

having the programme as an ‘object’ has followed through to the flyers [pictured] and posters [in a library near you now] which advertise the festival as a book with the ‘rear cover’ announcing the authors involved. the unusual programme size meant we were able to use the offcuts from the cover to produce bookmarks as give-aways at local libraries. other design work includes banners and tickets.

from our perspective, enjoying working as a graphic designer is often about who we get to work with - so special mention to the enthusiastic staff at scarborough central library who run the festival as well as keep a thriving library and information centre running. you can read principal officer lee taylor’s perspective here on the bbc website - we’re grateful for the credit he gives us. the festival website can be found here. the festival runs from 17-20 april with authors including ian rankin, louis de bernieres and joanne harris.

april issue of scarborough’s future with a centrespread report on digital scarborough 08. you can see the original promo literature designs here.

from the archives… this is a report for bradford district council upon completion of a seven year regeneration project to revitalise several inner city areas of bradford. it was accompanied by a website, also produced by electric angel: www.newlandspartnership.co.uk

we started electric angel design within the newlands area and were grateful for a grant to help us buy software. the newlands funding was also instrumental in the genesis of artworks creative communities which whom we have a long standing and creatively rewarding relationship, so being invited to design the report and website seemed fitting. an event within the communities to celebrate the achievements of the project was used to launch the report and we were also commissioned to design exhibition stands and a rolling visual presentation.

one aspect of the brief for this job was getting the balance between professional and interesting design without it looking like it had costs a lot of money - that’s often the case in the public sector, it’s not about looking flash but looking presenting information in a readable interesting format and with integrity. so much thought was given to the colours used and the paper we printed onto. likewise, with the exhibition stands the intention was to produce something that would be of use for the various community groups and organisations afterwards - given the economic circumstances of the area it would have been insulting to have a showy event in which there was no benefit to the community. artworks planned the evening utilising local creative talent and the end result of both event and print got the balance just right.

we don’t often blog football on here [i think this is a first], but with barnsley beating chelsea in the FA cup quarter finals at the weekend, and with fond memories of scarborough’s run in with the stamford bridge boys a few years ago, it seemed appropriate to say congrats to the team and life-long barnsley supporter dickie bird and pop up one of the pieces of work we’ve done for his charity.

the dickie bird foundation work to help disadvantaged young people find self-esteem and worth through participation in sport. wishing barnsley and the foundation all the best…

conference folders, document wallets, call ‘em what you want - but when was the last time you were given a beautiful one? or even an interesting one? for some reason they’re often a little under-designed - plain white and with a logo hanging in the middle or nestling in a corner. that’s fine if minimalism is your house style, but that’s rarely the reason. actually, i’ve no idea what the reason is.

our folder design for active faith communities challenged this strange status quo of the design world. they liked the idea of colour and impact. and why not? afc are all about enriching communities and every aspect of their promotional material needs to reflect that message. following on from a subtle refresh of the logo we’d designed for them several years ago, we took the blast of coloured light and splashed it across the folder.

although we’ve blogged the multilingual poster-leaflet we designed for active faiths we haven’t talked about the logo design. this grew out of a creative session we led with afc’s staff. whilst cutting and sticking images we came across a picture of a toddler playing with a large cardboard box. this led to a discussion about kids seeing the potential in something that adults will throw away without thought. it seemed an appropriate metaphor for an organisation that helps faith communities recognise and use their potential in the transformation of communities - often groups of people who have existed for a long time and never considered the profound impact they can have in their neighbourhood. the resulting ‘exploding box’ logo has a direct link to that first session. afc’s staff commented that they really appreciated our approach in being involved in the generation of ideas.

this is also an example of where we’ve done more than just design a logo. active faith communities already had a name but no strapline. we developed a list of possible straplines based on the discussions we’d had in the creative session. unlocking potential - enriching communities was the chosen line.

having designed artwork’s visual identity it’s fun to be using it and letting it develop and establish itself over a range of materials. some are direct communications from artworks - such as this annual review, some are flyers and reports produced by artworks which need a their own visual style but with the artworks brand applied somewhere in the design. keep watching for examples of both.

from recent photos it appears that the studio floor has tilted to the right by about 10 degrees. i think i was probably just wearing odd shoes one of which may have had a stiletto heel.

november issue of scarborough’s renaissance news above and below. if anyone wants to take us up on the offer of a little work experience for the january issue do get in touch. we’ll be working to get it to print before christmas so could be ideal if you’re a student looking to do something productive with your xmas break.

as promised in an earlier post here’s the launch brochure for yorkshire rural academy - a slightly unusual A4 landscape format [landscape - geddit…?] on thick silk art paper with a spot UV varnish on the cover images and logo. we’ll blog the exhibition stand designs tomorrow.

working largely in the public sector means that, particularly on local projects, you are likely to have some emotional attachment to the work. this might be as simple as knowing your designs will be gracing boards, buildings and banners in your home town and being aware of the resulting impact on public space. with other projects you may have a much more personal connection.

when based in bradford we lived in the area covered by the newlands single regeneration budget. artworks were one of the main partners in delivering regeneration projects in the area and we experienced their work in three ways - through designing promotional material and reports; through being involved in the delivery of projects such as helping a community group design a logo or produce a website; and because rebecca and i were involved in youthwork at one of the churches in the area, through knowing some of the young people whose lives were given excitement and hope by the events artworks ran.

at the end of the newlands funding we were commissioned to design the independent report and the summary document shown here that evaluated what artworks had achieved, and crucially, how much more they might have achieved had some of the circumstances been different. it was purely chance that some of the photos we were provided with for the reports were of brightly coloured costumes and painted faces against the backdrop of drab rainy days. and although artworks did and do much, much more than painting kids faces, this seemed an apt metaphor for artworks work in newlands - bringing sunshine to rainy days. so they were the pics we chose to use.

at electric angel we’re firm believers in the power of art and culture to transform communities. we look forward to working, celebrating and on occasion commiserating with artworks and other organisations with similar aims in the future.