Design Challenge and Design Ideas

International Literature Festival Dublin
Ireland’s premier literary event, International Literature Festival Dublin, gathers the finest writers in the world to debate, provoke, delight and enthral.

Challenge
The festival holds a series of diverse events in many unique spaces across the city. With over a hundred writers and dozens of events, there is something for everyone to discover. The festival’s goal is to enrich lives, provoke new thoughts and broaden experiences through literature. Their previous branding did not reflect this.

How the brief was fulfilled

Approach
A new look was required for the festival branding and 2019 campaign. We worked together with ILFD to create a new visual language that was constructed around the concept of challenging literature.

The new logo we created, was designed referencing the hippocampus, a mythical sea-creature who carried Poseidon’s chariot across the sea and land. Dublin’s hippocampus can be seen on Grattan Bridge over the River Liffey as ornate lamps on the cast-iron bridge. The hooves of the logo were replaced with quotation marks to signify the literature. The new branding appeared on t-shirts, totes, bookmarks and postcards.

We had real fun producing the creative which featured a series of readers lost in their book. We made a series of oversized books and mini books in various shapes and sizes. Each book was designed to fit into a specific format, such as a tall book for the tall flags and a very long landscape book for a billboard. The resulting photographs and films formed a unique language for the festival.

Services
Branding, design for print, advertising, signage, merchandise.

Value
The 2019 festival was described as ‘boasting a stunning array of top international literary talent’ and ‘the country’s most successful and easily the best annual literary event’, attracting readers of all ages.