ChipLitFest
A festival beyond words
New identity brings essence of literary festival to life, enabling it to compete alongside the established mainstream events.
The challenge
Chipping Norton Literary Festival has to compete with much larger, well-established mainstream events, all looking to attract big-name authors. The team behind the event recognised that after five years a stronger identity was needed – one that captured the essence and spirit of the event, and punched above its weight in the way the event itself does.
The solution
Chipping Norton Literary Festival is remarkable in so many ways. Run by a small team of professional, highly skilled volunteers, it is held in intimate venues that provide the rare opportunity to get up close and personal with big name authors.
The festival prides itself on being accessible to everyone, not too highbrow or intimidating, and aims to be inspirational in getting people interested in the literary world. A greater social vision underpins the whole event. A percentage of the profits is invested in outreach programmes and improving literacy amongst local children throughout the year. All this led to us defining the festival as being an experience ‘Beyond Words’.
We brought the theme of ‘beyond words’ to life around a simple yet distinctive design system based on speech marks. The marks work flexibly in pairs or in isolation, encapsulating the festival conversation whilst also symbolising open books – a gentle nod to ChipLitFest’s accessible nature.
Clare Mackintosh Founder – Chipping Norton Literary Festivalmark-making* took something that started in my head, and turned it into something tangible. They don’t only make marks, they make magic.
The results
Jenny Dee Festival Director – Chipping Norton Literary FestivalThe rebrand has given us a professionalism we didn’t have before. Authors’ publicists and agents are inundated with requests for appearances at festivals and our handsome, grown-up design, lets them know that although we might be smaller in comparison, ChipLitFest is worth sending their authors to and we are now one of the smaller festivals that genuinely competes with the mainstream ones.
