The brief asked for a brand identity for an Educational Theatrical Workshop teaching primary school children about famous historical figures. I choose the life of Sir Winston Churchill. The brief also asked for several sample pages for an illustrated workbook to accompany the programme of events.
The Concept
In order to engage a young audience with the historical material I developed an espionage-based concept entitled 'Time Spies' that was set within a fictional framework of a government body entitled the 'Ministry for Historical Intelligence'. Through this agency, the children would play the part of time-travelling spies/detectives discovering information about the past.
The Logos
In order to reflect both the overall brand and the narrative within the project, two linked but separate logos were developed.
Time Spies Main Logo
The first was the Time Spies Project logo, which was designed with an interchangeable central roundel that could house illustrations of different historical figures depending on the workshop. The top typeset was hand drawn and was influenced by flowing hand scripts of the past fused with parts from a mechanical clock. This was then deliberately distorted to create a sense of disorder, fun, and 'wackiness' to help appeal to young children.
The lower Sans Serif was deliberately chosen to have little voice to give an air of secrecy and officiality. This created a nice juxtaposition that suited the nature of the workshop well.
Ministry Roundel
The second logo produced was a roundel for the 'Ministry of Historical Intelligence'. This was designed to be representative of an official government stamp with a view to creating a real rubber stamp in the format to use within the workshop as well as sell in the gift shop.
The roundel itself was comprised of a central crown (representing the English Monarchy) and was encircled by a clock face whose characters appeared to go back in time.
The Illustrated Life of Winston Churchill
Alongside the identity, 5 different double-page spreads were written and illustrated. This was intended to accompany the workshop and offered possibilities for further study in the school.
The spreads charted various events from Winston Churchill's life including his early life as a member of the English aristocracy, his service during the Boer War and several key episodes from the Second World War.
The aims of the illustrations were to be as colourful and energetic as possible to try and keep the young viewers engaged. I deliberately choose extreme viewpoints and exciting/comical scenes to aid this. Similarly, I adopted a slightly naive and imprecise illustrative style drawn using Japanese brush pens, exaggerating the anatomies of the characters to keep them interesting. These images were then coloured digitally and composed in Indesign.
