Buskival

Classic festival branding, made new again

Bradford Producing Hub wanted Buskival to feel like a proper festival from day one, with its own identity distinct from Bradford Producing Hub’s own brand rather than an extension of it. The reference points were classic: Glastonbury’s 1970s posters, hand-drawn festival type, vintage greens, blues and yellows. The brief was to take that spirit and make it modern, something that looked at home on a printed poster and equally at home on a phone screen.

We developed the identity around a simplified take on that vintage festival logo style, paired with icon work built from stars, triangles and soundwave shapes rather than the more obvious guitar or rock-hand imagery the client was keen to avoid. The result needed to work as a proper system, not just a logo, so we built out full guidelines covering colour, type and icon use, flexible enough for different people on the team to apply consistently across posters, flags, digital assets and email signatures.

That flexibility mattered because Buskival’s assets needed to do different jobs. The poster template was designed as a bold decorative border with space left open inside, so the same design could promote different line-ups and information as the programme developed. The flag became a simple, reusable place marker, just the logo and the #Buskival hashtag, built to work as wayfinding on the day and a prompt for online engagement afterwards. Across every format, the aim was the same: a brand that felt rooted in festival history but built to stand on its own.