Brand Aid 1: As free as a bird!
As a designer, a brief sometimes hits the studio, which immediately starts the creative juices flowing. ‘Liberty Business in Stortford’ was one of these! (whereas ‘Blands Accountants’, would need a proper brain squeeze).
BRIEF: To brand and create marketing materials for a unique business, jobs and shopping fair in Bishop’s Stortford on June 12th 2013.
PROJECT TITLE: ‘Liberty Business in Stortford’.
GOAL: To build the perception of Bishop’s Stortford as a desirable & prosperous town by supporting and enabling growth through the town’s small, independent and local businesses.
VENUE: Market Square, Baroosh, HOST & Zizzi – Bishop’s Stortford
Right, here we go, blank sheet of paper… where to start?… ‘Young’ designers head straight for the computer to work on concepts, this always baffles me, not only does it limit creativity, it takes 10 times longer?… it’s straight to the sketch pad for ‘old school’ designers.
The dictionary definition of Liberty focuses strongly on ‘Freedom’ & ‘Independence’ so early sketches immediately leant towards possible loose ‘script’ applications, ‘the Liberty Bell’ and ‘free as a bird’. The Liberty Bell’s far too American, but ‘free as a bird’ struck the right note.
While sketching loose bird symbols, we noticed that the generic abstract ‘bird’ shape used by lots of painters, also appears in the cap ‘B’ of the word ‘LIBERTY’, although it’s firmly attached to the upright of the B.
Our idea is that part of the ‘B’ of LIBERTY has broken away and is set free. This element then becomes a bird that floats around above the logo unbound by any constraints.
The concept is that each time the logo appears, the bird will fly to a different position, angle and scale, sometimes close to the logo, if there are height restrictions (eg. on a website header)
and sometimes soaring higher above it, where there’s room available (eg. on leaflets & posters)…
Knowing when to stop’s the problem, so as usual, we went one step too far when suggesting that on the day of the event, our 3D bird could be magically suspended over the rooftops of Market Square with ‘Freebird’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd playing at full volume in the background…silence, tumbleweeds, I’ll get me coat!
Right Angle Design have created the branding & marketing materials for the event, but full credit for the event concept, name, colourways and organisation go to Bishop’s Stortford Deputy Mayor, Janice Elliott – event updates and further information can be found on janiceelliott.co.uk
