For ArtWeek Boston, I designed and executed a multi-channel digital campaign and brand consolidation strategy to unify disparate cultural events across the city. Over targeted engagement windows twice annually, the initiative drove record attendance and established a centralized destination for Boston’s creative community and beyond.
The result
Record attendance, a brand that stayed recognizable as the festival grew, and an expansion statewide as ArtWeek Massachusetts.
Disciplines
Art direction, branding, copywriting, design
Deliverables
Art direction, brand guidelines, print ads, banner ads, email templates, digital billboards, on-site signage and collateral, website
Collaborators
Samantha Burns, Long Haul Films
Background and research
The challenge: ArtWeek was designed to drive neighborhood economic impact and build awareness of the area’s creative economy through events that partnered artists with local businesses. That meant bringing together an enormous range of events, venues, and presenters, from many disciplines and neighborhoods, under one identity without flattening what made each of them different.
Learning from others: I began by researching other arts festivals, specifically multidisciplinary ones, to see how they handled the breadth and diversity of their events. The pattern was clear: the events and creative partners were the story, not the festival. That finding shaped everything that followed. The ArtWeek brand needed to step back and let the events take the spotlight.
Mood board
Unleash your creativity
The ArtWeek Boston logo
A paintbrush or a pair of drama masks would have limited what ArtWeek could celebrate, so I rejected clichés in favor of a clean, type-forward mark. The “ArtWeek button” can be tagged onto any image to show it’s part of the festival. When no specific event or genre was being promoted, the city of Boston itself became the default image.
The mark was built on three principles:
Flexible: It sits on top of any presenter’s imagery.
Legible: It makes a bold statement at any size, from subway turnstiles to a pocket calendar.
Unlimited: It uses no art-making symbols, so no discipline is left out.
Brand standards guide
A system built for others: Because many people would present their own events, I wrote a detailed identity standards manual and an assets toolbox to guide the designers creating ArtWeek communications. The system ran across print and magazine ads, subway turnstile ads, a pocket calendar, digital billboards, emails, and TV spots.
Pocket calendar
Magazine ad
“How do you encapsulate everything that art is and brings to a community? A seemingly daunting task. In creating this brand, Kyle went beyond the conventional, expected interpretations of art and created a thoughtful, dynamic system that withstood the test of time.”
—Samantha Burns, ArtWeek Boston project manager
(Photo: ABR Photography & Design)
Lighting up the city: For the launch of ArtWeek’s spring 2014 edition, Boston’s iconic Prudential Center tower was lit up in the brand’s colors.
Subway turnstile ads
Results and impact
After its launch, ArtWeek Boston continued to grow through more communities, disciplines, and industries. The brand strategy grew and adapted too, shifting its focus from introducing the concept to promoting individual events.
The iconic button logo and bright ArtWeek blue became instantly recognizable as more and more events were added in future editions, and the festival eventually expanded statewide and rebranded as ArtWeek Massachusetts.
Work done while in-house at the Boch Center.