19 October, 2018
Birmingham Design Festival create by Common Curiosity – Birmingham’s history is one of creating; of craft and of industry, a history in which design sits at the very heart. Why the city has never had a design festival — whilst other UK cities have well and truly flown their design flags with great pride — is a mystery. A group of Midlands makers, maestros and misfits felt the time was right to remedy this. June 2018 saw the launch of the Birmingham Design Festival — a celebration of the dynamic design industry in the second city and surrounding areas.
Setting up a design festival is no small task — the sponsorship, the venues, the speakers, the logistics — all enough to make the mind melt, but one of the toughest asks is getting the message out there and inspiring people to come along and get involved. Here lies the job of the brand. Luckily the Birmingham Design Festival team consisted of a number of designers that ply their trade in this particular area — Luke Tonge, Ash O’Brien from Two of Us and Paul Felton from Common Curiosity.
From the outset we were keen that the branding had real substance and longevity. We wanted to develop a visual identity that trod a delicate balance of representing the city of Birmingham and its design industry, whilst swerving any overused clichés.
Birmingham has been known as the “City of a Thousand Trades” and “the workshop of the world.” They’re sayings ingrained in our city, and a reputation us Brummies are all proud of. This reputation for craft and the handmade felt like something we should absolutely look to bring to the fore and harness in the brand identity.
Through our research we uncovered a rich graphic language in existence for centuries — found in hallmarks. A hallmark is a series of marks containing letters, numerals and symbols, struck on metal items to denote the content of the piece, the maker behind the design and any distinguishing characteristics. Hallmarks date back to the 4th century AD — silver bars marked as belonging to Emperor Augustinian around AD 350 represents the oldest known form of consumer protection. This graphic system has continued to modern day and is prevalent in the jewellery industry — one of Birmingham’s most famous exports. The link between this system, making jewellery, and Birmingham felt like a perfect fit. Birmingham also has its own Assay Office, one of only four in the UK. We thought we could look to harness this graphic lexicon that is intrinsically linked to Birmingham’s historical and contemporary craft, but re-appropriate it for a contemporary forward-looking festival.
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