Metaform - A communication design studio

BACKGROUND: New Leadership at the Cultch
In late March, we were approached by the Vancouver East Culture Centre Communications Director, Rebecca Sharma, to design their season brochure and marketing campaign which would hit the streets in June and July. This was Rebecca’s first year at the Cultch and the first year for new Executive Director, Heather Redfern. Both had great enthusiasm for upping the creative ante with the Cultch’s marketing and really setting the venue apart from other Vancouver arts venues. Ideally they sell the yearly subscriptions over the late summer and early fall, so Rebecca wanted us to create a direct mail piece outlining some of the big names for the season which would be mailed out prior to the completion of the major brochure. Essentially a postcard, this would prime people to buy a subscription based on big name events and the fact that the savings are so good when you subscribe.

THE CULTCH BRAND: No Logo
One of the things that became clear was that the new powers that be at the Cultch were not happy with their existing logo. However, there was not time or resources to devote to a new one that year. For this season, we determined that the old torn off ticket logo would be minimized, or not used at all and we could use the nickname of “The Cultch” as the key identifier. Essentially, we also had to create an interim brand identity.

On top of that, the clients felt the previous marketing by the Cultch was too corporate. We were shown several arts brochure precedents to consider what they felt might be appropriate for their market. Ideas included a handdrawn feel, playful approach to photography and a consistent treatment of show details (date, time, etc.). At one point, Rebecca noted that as designers, we would be allowed considerable creative freedom, on the level of the musicians, dancers and performers who prepared work for their stage. Unreal! And inspiring!

DISCOVERY AND CONCEPT DESIGN
Off to a great start, we mined deeply the well of creativity: looking at the content of their season, the images that had been supplied for the shows, the nature of the arts in the city, the relationship of the Cultch to its audiences, concepts of performance, stage and personal authorship… you name it. In our discovery process, we read and reviewed everything they handed us, looked again at what others in town were doing, and put ourselves in the shoes of their audience. Happily this part was relatively easy as Scot and I are fairly typical of a Cultch audience. Slightly older than average, educated liberal-minded artsy Vancouver residents—with kids.

One of the things Scot noted early on is that he finds typical theatre photography makes even the best show looks over the top hammy and contrived. We did quite a bit of experimentation with the season’s show imagery to consider how best to surprise the audience and avoid hackneyed representations of “the-UH-TUH”.

Because time was tight, we employed one of our favourite concept development strategies: Metaform Speed Design-off™. Focussing on the postcard front, each designer was asked to generate 10 ideas in about 2 hours, aiming for a quantity of big, fun ideas. Anything goes. In the end, nearly 60 ideas were pinned up, tossed out and evaluated for their merits. Here’s a few of them, below.

We narrowed down our original set of concepts, measuring them against our criteria: 1. able to feature programming and “The Cultch” simultaneously; 2. eclectic and visually original; 3. conveys connection between art and real life. We shared our initial ideas with the client who were very excited by the range of choices we had cooked up. Working collaboratively with Rebecca and Heather, we refined our ideas on the spot and determined which directions to pursue. Below are a few experiments on the chosen theme: The Cultch IS Vancouver.

We showed Cultch show posters pinned up everywhere around the city, which we then layered with some handwritten comments and graphic cutouts from the season’s show imagery. Metaform recognized the opportunity to feature the physicality of performance stripped down from its stage setting and bring that presence into the city, on the bus shelter, on the newstand, on a lamp pole near you. Combined with muscular typography, the whole effect was bold, energetic and cheeky.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT: A Brochure Template is Born
One of our aims was to create an overall consistency of vision—to create a clear voice for the Cultch as a trusted source for cutting-edge performing arts. An issue arose in creating a cohesive brochure because of the difference in style and quality in performer-supplied show photos: some are great and some are not. Our approach was, similar to the postcard, to develop our own posters for each show, pin them up or magically make them appear on bus shelters and billboards everywhere. It was fun, totally conceptual and ambitious, to say the least. Here are a few before and afters of our guerilla “advertising campaign”:

Below are some of the spreads for the brochure, which take their clues from that postcard and develop the system further. Our cover design was a simple shot, by Scot, of The Cultch’s well-loved heritage theatre space.

A YEAR’S WORTH OF POSTERS AND ADS: Extending the Visual System
Because of the big success of the direct mail and brochure design, Rebecca asked us to prepare their poster and newspaper designs for the year. Working with this template concept and with the idea of creating a consistent package for the season, we developed about 10 posters for work from September through May. We created a simple and classic black, white and red palette in order to create a consistent visual style. To keep the impact of name and imagery strong, we realized we needed to develop a system of organization for the details. You see those cluttered arts posters all the time around town: where the phone number unwittingly fights for your attention with the face of the artist, or the sponsor logo crowds out any white space that might give your eye a second to take in the meaning of the page. To keep the fine balance between energy and order, therefore, we created an “information block” which was customizable for each event, but which would hold the times, performer credits, sponsor logos and other essential details for selling the event. Layered with a little whimsy like handwritten comments, scribble people or other graffitt-like scrawl, we further emphasized the handmade and personal, unstuffy nature of the work at The Cultch. Here are a few:

EVALUATION OF SUCCESS
Working with The Cultch on the concept, brochure, posters and ads over the year, we were able to be closely involved in monitoring the success of the campaign and adjusting the ads or posters as necessary to make them as effective as possible. Did we solve the problems we were hired to solve? In following up with Rebecca and Heather, they were thrilled with the work and felt the posters were the best they had ever seen for the Cultch and were widely noticed around town. The brochure also was a step forward for their public profile, garnering a record number of subscribers for the 07-08 season. In terms of brand identity, the name The Cultch became more widely recognized to the level that in the spring of 2008, Metaform was asked to work again with The Cultch on a new logo which would fully embrace “The Cultch” as their official identity (click here for our work on that project). Although the results of design and marketing can be hard to measure and quantify in the short term, the client felt that we did our job quite well, gave them great value for money, made their jobs easier, garnered increased interest in The Cultch, and in the parlance of theatre, put bums on seats. In the end, it was such a great collaboration, we’ve done it again, (and again!) having just completed our fourth consecutive season campaign for the client, which you can see here. Let us know what you think!