Nottingham Trent University
A campaign identity designed to connect arts and culture with a new audience.
One of the UK’s biggest and best known education institutions had a positive problem: a dizzying wealth of arts venues, events and activities, scattered across its home city. We stepped in to help them join the dots.
Sector
Education
What we did
Discovery & Definition
- Naming
- Audits
- Consultation
- Interviews
- Workshops
- Brand strategy
Design Development
- Creative concepts
- Messaging and tone of voice
- Brand expression
- Campaign communications
- Campaign identity
- Content creation
- Digital expression
- Print design
- Art direction
- Event branding
Delivery
- Brand guidelines
- Brand toolkits
- Tone of voice guidelines
- Motion design and video
Context
Nottingham Trent University – voted University of the Year 2017 by the Times Higher Education awards – can justifiably claim to be a champion of the arts. The University curates a rich calendar of cultural events and its city-wide campus boasts a number of great arts venues, from contemporary galleries and grand concert halls to quirky and intimate performance spaces.
NTU had always struggled to communicate its arts and culture offer to audiences in a compelling and meaningful way. It was a complex challenge with a number of important stakeholders to take account of. Baxter & Bailey navigated this challenging brief brilliantly, not only naming our culture offer but also designing an arresting and singular campaign identity. Bravo!
Solution
Our challenge was to bring this broad ranging cultural offer to an equally broad audience, encompassing regular arts consumers as well as first-timers. Our naming solution brings the idea of curation right to the heart of the solution, whilst the design approach celebrates cultural diversity, juxtaposing imagery in often surprising ways.
Impact
The campaign was launched city wide, helping a new cohort of students to navigate the cultural landscape of the campus and the wider city. It’s was a campaign designed to turn heads and prick up ears. See you in the front row.
Awards
Fresh Awards
Silver 2020
Special Thanks
A special thank you to David Penney for inviting us to deliver our very first project for Nottingham Trent University. What a lovely job to kick off with. And thanks also to Helen Garrigan for helping us to steer a path through the rich and diverse NTU cultural offer.
