Monday 24 March 2014

A structured identity for the Brecon Beacons


The Brecon Beacons is an area famed for its exceptional natural beauty, wide open hillsides and natural light. It is also designated as a ‘dark sky’ area with little or no light pollution.

In 2010 Visit Wales designated the Brecon Beacons as a national park, and Small Back Room were asked to create a new brand for the Brecon Beacons, basing the designs around the ideas of light and the thought ‘Our National Park’.

Taking the idea of light as central to the branding, the logo contains two intersecting lines that create a triangle or cone of light, which creates an underlying structure that influences the visual language of the brand. For example, the cone can be used as a supergraphic.

I like the idea of supergraphics that stem from the core brand. I first became aware of this when working with the Department of Health (DH) brand, where a segment of the DH arc is used as a container for images.

But supergraphics are not limited to print.

Taken to an extreme, the shard-like visual language developed by FutureBrand from the construction lines for the 2012 London Olympic logo, were used to create environmental graphics that could be expressed on a huge scale, for example as seating patterns in the Olympic stadium and pool.

You can imagine the same principles being used to influence the environmental design for visitor centres, signage and events like Brecon Jazz.

The Brecon Beacons brand is designed to be bilingual, and the brand colour palette is extended to enable the brand to be used as flexibly as possible.

The website will launch in April, and stakeholders will be able to download digital assets to apply the brand locally. I hope they're able to imagine the possibilities and to use it well.