Matthew Warchus becoming artistic director brought a dramatic new approach to the theatre.
As Senior Graphic Designer at The Old Vic, I worked with Harry Pearce and his team at Pentagram, liaising between the design agency and the theatre to create a bold and raw approach focused on the typography-led posters from the theatre’s archive in Bristol.
Years of experience of being part of the in-house design team meant I was able to offer unique insight on issues the theatre faced as an organisation, as well as possible design solutions which were incorporated into the branding guidelines.
For the promotional posters for No’s Knife which were displayed in various locations across London including Islington, Brixton, Shoreditch and Hackney, we split the artwork over two sheets allowing one to focus entirely on the typography, and the other to prioritise the commissioned illustration. This has been repeated in further campaigns.
Portrait of Lisa Dwan: Rupert Smissen. Photo: Pentagram
I led on creating working documents and templates in Photoshop and InDesign, adapting those provided by Pentagram across a wide range of assets.
These will work in future to create great consistency in how artwork is displayed across marketing campaigns both in print and digital. This can be an incredibly time consuming process, especially as the theatre strives to announce a whole season of work at once meaning a great deal of artwork is needed to be supplied at the same time.
To solve this issue – which had time as well as cost implications – I created a new workflow for creating images for partner websites which dramatically streamlined the process and significantly shortened the time spent artworking.
Portrait of Glenda Jackson: Sue Spaull. Photo: Pentagram
John Boyega portrait: Akse. Photo: Pentagram