James Brook / Design: January 2023

This is a series of posters that I designed for MANIPULATE, Edinburgh’s international festival of visual theatre and animated film. The festival presents the very best of Scottish and international visual theatre, puppetry and animated film to adult audiences in Edinburgh and beyond. Here are the posters in situ, all around Edinburgh.

The posters are part of a wider identity that I have designed for MANIPULATE that has been adapted for a suite of deliverables including a programme guide, posters of various sizes, online and printed advertisements, social media assets, digital posters, lanyards, and a ‘takeover’ of The Skinny website. As well as a general poster, there are a further five posters promoting individual shows and events at venues in Edinburgh including Fruitmarket, National Library of Scotland, Traverse Theatre, Summerhall and the Festival Theatre.

The starting point for the identity was an animation of the MANIPULATE logo created by Jamie Macdonald that was used as an ident to announce the festival. Taking inspiration from Jamie’s animation, I created a background image of a galaxy of stars featuring green clouds – green being one of the colours in the animation and selected by the MANIPULATE team to be a key colour. Along with the MANIPULATE logo, this background appears in all of the assets that I have designed, creating a cohesive and distinct set of visuals.

The posters have been designed in sizes ranging from A3 to A0 but these ones were printed by the arts agency Jack Arts and measure 1016 mm w x 1524 mm. As a designer, it’s always exciting to see things as full size objects in the real world having designed them on a computer screen, but especially so when they are on this scale! More posters will appear as the festival gets in full swing.