Manipulate Festival Posters

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. The posters are various sizes from A3 to A0 as well as some irregular formats.

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, online and printed advertisements, social media assets, digital posters, lanyards, and a ‘takeover’ of The Skinny website. 

 


From the Archive: Dovecot What's On Guide | January-June 2018

Dovecot What’s On Guide | January-June 2018 

One of a series designed by James Brook for Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.



Manipulate Festival Posters

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.


From the Archive: Dovecot What's On Guide | August-December 2015

Dovecot What’s On Guide | August-December 2015 

One of a series designed by James Brook for Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.



From the Archive: Scraps From The Bottom Of My Pocket

Scraps From The Bottom Of My Pocket 

Vincent Dachy 

Published by Artwords Press, London, 2013 

Designed by James Brook 

ISBN 978 1 906441 29 6 

Printed on Olin paper by Aldgate Press, London 96 pages with soft cover
153 x 228 mm | Edition of 500

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, set in ASG, a typeface originally designed for Collective, Edinburgh in 2013, re-worked in 2022.

Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings, set in ASG, a typeface originally designed for Collective, Edinburgh in 2013, re-worked in 2022.


Perspectives Issue 2

Perspectives Issue 2: Legacy 

Published by Haileybury, 2022 

Editor-in-chief: Toby Parker 

Editor: Kathryn Koon 

Photography: Anya Campbell 

Designed by James Brook 

210mm x 245mm | 40 pages | Printed on 150 gsm Edixion Offset with 300 gsm machine-sealed soft cover by Gomer, Wales 

This is the second issue of Perspectives, a magazine that I designed, published by Haileybury School. The publication was developed from a desire to showcase the school’s heritage, current academic and cultural issues and new research about the school’s collections. It has been established in order to examine its role in a variety of cultural practices and issues, and to think critically about the way in which it interacts with other cultural institutions locally, nationally and globally. 

For the design of the magazine, I worked closely with Toby Parker, the Director of Learning and Research at Haileybury. Through a series of conversations and exchanges of visual material, I developed a design that makes some nods to Haileybury’s visual identity but which is distinct enough to stand alone. 

The design is based around a flexible layout that can accommodate different types of information, giving each section of the magazine its own distinct identity. The basic layout is a three column grid with type arranged on one or two columns giving a variety that helps differentiate each article. Titles, body text and images are often hung from a guideline that runs through the magazine giving a sense of order which is occasionally broken to create emphasis or visual energy. I have used type at different sizes, weights and combinations to create interesting titles and headers, arranged in sometimes playful ways with the text and images. 

My initial thoughts for the choice of typeface was to use a serif and sans-serif that have been designed to work together – I initially considered Meta Pro and Meta Serif Pro or Freight Sans Pro and Freight Text Pro. The school’s branding is based around the typefaces Calluna and Calluna Sans, so, although not a requirement to do so, it made sense to use these typefaces in the magazine. Calluna has some interesting characteristics that are revealed when the typeface is used at a larger scale, as on the masthead. 

Images are prioritised in the magazine: some were specifically chosen to be placed within particular articles but I was also given another set of images, of members of staff photographed by Anya Campbell, to be placed throughout the magazine to act as punctuation and to create an alternative dialogue that runs alongside the main articles.

The magazine is published quarterly with issues in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each issue will be themed, with this one titled ‘Legacy’.



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