Open Studios Cornwall 2007-2010 Event Identity, Guide and Posters

Open Studios Cornwall is an annual ten-day event where artists from across Cornwall open their studios to the public.

With the strapline ‘Artists across Cornwall throw open their doors’, a key requirement of the brief was to signal the event as open to all: a way to experience a huge variety of original artwork outside of the gallery environment, and an excellent opportunity for the public to interact with artists.

In 2007 we were commissioned to carry out a redesign of the marketing material for the event. We felt that the event should speak louder and be more celebratory than in previous years – to raise its profile and highlight it as an important event in the arts calendar. With this in mind, we set out to create a single, uniting identity that embraces all disciplines, from painters to digital artists. The ‘O’ letterform/ circle was chosen as a simple, easily recognisable and positive symbol – with which the public would quickly become familiar.

The main challenge in producing the catalogue – a printed guide for the public to all the open studios, was presenting a lot of information in a simple to use format. And a tight print budget meant that each page had to accommodate three artist entries, including information about their work and directions to their studios, as well as their varying opening hours. Our system was to place the participating artists (scattered across the county) in geographical order, following a route from Lands End at the tip of Cornwall, to Bude in the north. We split the brochure into three sections – North, West and East – and this is cross-referenced with a map at the beginning of the guide. The idea is that people can make a day of it – choose a route and take in a number of artists along the way.

The success of this programme of work is reflected by a report of the 2007 and 2008 events carried out by Creative Skills:

Visitor numbers to the 2008 event were up on 2006 by nearly 5 times – from 2,100 in 2006, to nearly 10,000 in 2008. And, revenue from sales of artworks more than doubled between 2006 and 2008.

Font

ITC Avant Garde

Printing

APB Colour Print Limited, Bristol/ St Austell Printing Company Limited

Paper

Regency Satin. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper, from Howard Smith Paper

Related projects

Open Studios Cornwall identity