electric angel /design for life

are you ready for the weekend?

this weekend sees the third scarborough literature festival with a line up of thriller writers, poets and a strong bbc presence [including a cyberman!]. we were invited to design the programme and publicity material following our work on the festival last year which received some really nice comments.

because the festival is still something of a new kid on the block albeit one already developing a strong reputation, building an identifiable brand is important. to this end we recommended using a dominant image that had a recognisable relationship with last years ‘bookchair’ illustration. the illustration this year incorporates the festival title and dates as paper ‘stickers’. the travel stickers continue through the programme to highlight the themes running through the festival.

pick up a programme from any north yorkshire library or look at the details online.

coastival programme

the coastival programme was launched this week announcing a fantastic line-up for the festival in february. our challenge in designing the programme was to create a cohesive look for a wonderfully diverse weekend in which you might go see feeder, watch laurence olivier in wuthering heights, visit a video installation in an underground carpark and spend some time in the company of a best selling author.

we’ve identified the 8 strands of the festival with hand-drawn icons and a colour-coded system. the first two ‘openings’ of the programme reveal a general then genre-specific intro to coastival, the reverse is a full page of what’s going on over the whole weekend categorised by strand. we wrote the copy for the introductions.

as with all work for festivals like this the priority is to create something that is as usable as possible. all the venues are numbered and can be found via a map on the rear of the leaflet. plus there’s an at-a-glance listing so you can browse each day chronologically.

if you’d like a programme posting to you free of charge send an email titled ‘Please send me a Coastival programme’ and containing your name and address to contact@create.uk.net

enterprising britain – the book

so we’d planned the day and the take-home and initially discussed sending someone to accompany the judging team on the last leg of the journey into scarborough but didn’t want to spoil the story by saying too much in advance. so it was suggested we put together a brochure that told the facts and the stats – the stuff it was going to be hard to get out in the personal stories without it seeming staged. the judges would have this info in the entry submission but it needed a friendly presentation.

so, no problem – that’s what we do at electric angel. one slight problem with this one though – we were now just 3 working days from the visit. 5 days if you include the weekend. and we obviously needed to – in fact it was john in the regeneration team at the council who spent his weekend turning formal text into a more enjoyable read. we did the design, illustrations, sourced photos and arranged print turnaround in the remaining 3 days. this is why designers always look so tired. the booklets – designed to ultimately slip into the goodie boxes – were delivered by first transpennine express who personally placed them into the hands of the judging team at york station.

as for the design – we went with hand-drawn illustrations to make the stats more approachable, an easy to read layout and made the most of photos – by tony bartholomew and james. an idea we had was to also give some background to scarborough by having a timeline run throughout the book that charted scarborough’s history. likewise, the photos tell a chronological story from 2002 onwards [2002 being the point when the renaissance initiative began]. it was good to to see the judging team making notes in the margins during the day.

beverley literature festival

yes, it’s been over a week since we last blogged – but we have been busy and as a result will have lots to blog, plus some exciting news about electric angel hq.

now then…
beverley literature festival kicks off tomorrow with an enticing collection of authors and activities. we’ve designed the festival brochure, posters and display material and i think it’s one of those jobs where i’ll explain what we did and why…

something we decided very early on with electric angel was that we would define our design priorities anew for each job and that there would never be any overarching ambition to develop a recognisable studio house-style [although some people say we do have one], be fashionable or serve any other purpose. in some ways this goes against popular theory that to initially develop a reputation as a designer you need a distinctive style.

with beverley literature festival our priorities were worked out with the festival’s director – good communication and ease-of-use being the overriding priorities for the brochure.

the design uses clear roman and sans serif fonts with good contrast combined with slightly more anarchic hand-written headings. we’ve striven to achieve a logical easy-to-read layout. the dates alternate in colour so that the diary page, the programme and the booking form all correlate. we consciously broke with page numbering tradition so that the first page of the programme section was page 1 even though not a ‘right hand’ page, but then because our brochure opens upwards rather than outwards we felt that let us off the hook. and we had a reason anyway.

oh, and the reason for the that upwards opening was to get the diary page as a complete vertical list alongside the map for easy reference.

the decision to use two colours came after looking at promotional material from a range of literature festivals which were rather generic. we decided that a limited colour palette would lend beverley a distinctive style – colour is all too often used just for decoration. the choice of paper type – slightly rough cartridge paper style stock – was also part of communicating a sense of authenticity.

the illustrations are created from photos taken by james – we created bold stamp-like images in which the letter ‘B’ keeps appearing. as well as being playful they help to sell part of the attraction of beverley literature festival which had been neglected in recent years, namely spending some time in this charming yorkshire wolds town. bear illustration by children’s author lydia monks – appearing at this year’s festival.

the booking form is positioned as the centre pages of the brochure making it easy to remove without destroying any vital information. it’s also designed to pop straight into a DL window envelope with the return address showing in the window.

12 months of renaissance news [and 2 weeks of tom]

it was only when sorting out past issues of scarborough’s future for the enterprising britain judging that we realised that 12 months had passed since we suggested to nick, the renaissance manager, that we thought a high quality publication could be produced for the same cost as the then, photocopied newsletter. in fact we managed to bring the cost per issue down.

the first new look scarborough’s future was launched in july 2007 to acclaim and since then demand for copies has continued to rise each month and has recently attracted sponsorship from transpennine express. we had two priorities in mind when designing the format: 1. to communicate the dynamism and excitement of the renaissance process in a friendly way; and 2. to design a layout that would stand the test of time and a variety of subjects.

putting that design to the test this month with the electric angel team is yorkshire coast college graduate tom bastiman who has joined us for work experience.

round the rotunda

the june issue of renaissance news came out at the start of last week but we were so tied up with enterprising britain that we’ve only just got round to blogging it. the centrespread, shown above, documents the opening of the rotunda museum – the latest renaissance project to achieve completion.

the rotunda is one of britain’s oldest, and probably finest, purpose-built museums and has just received a multi-million pound revamp to bring it into the C21st and restore it to its original purpose as a geology museum. it was originally built in 1828 to communicate the theories of william smith ‘the father of english geology’ – a character who has been somewhat forgotten by the general public but is one of britain’s scientific heroes. the new rotunda makes explicit the links between geology and oil and gas exploration as well as having plenty of dinosaur bones and fossils. i guess i don’t need to point out that james’s design for the centerspread takes its inspiration from ammonites.

photography of the museum and official opening by tony batholomew.

stories, pizza, surfing, beer

the essentials of life. or a summary of our programme for today’s enterprising britain judging.

obviously we want to win this thing so won’t be giving too much away just yet as to what we did but i think it went well. i helped present the initial presentation and james [representing graduates who stay in the town] came down for the ending. above is a photo of a photo being taken [how postmodern] of the judging team meeting local surf entrepreneurs including james [1st left]. judge, james murray wells, founder of glasses direct is sixth from the left.

we’re weren’t particularly nervous because we’re confident in the story of scarborough’s transformation over the last 6 years, but all the judges really helped by being down to earth and i enjoyed chatting with james and the others. i think they enjoyed their day in scarborough even if we did try and squash a lot in – but we did have a big story to tell.

so now we have to wait till september to find out how we did…

the cultural explosion!

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.

scarborough literature festival …the long weekend

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.

scarborough’s future april 08

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