A brand to create a buzz around storytelling culture.

The Victoria Theatre in Halifax, West Yorkshire, opened its doors back in 1901 – it’s over 100 years old and is still the biggest theatre in Calderdale to this day. An impressive history and a culture of work, play and making memories was something they wanted to shout about, but they had no solid identity to enable them to do that.

Their logo has been around for many years, but they needed a visual language to wrap around it and make them stand out alongside the many show brands they were promoting. Their brand was invisible in their marketing materials and needed to be brought to the fore so they could communicate who they are to their broad audience base.

We developed an exciting strapline, ‘Where Stories Live’ that communicates the synergy of the visitors, staff and performers and represents creating and building stories together. Illustrative graphics originated based on the theatre’s beautiful architecture, providing a visual language for their historical culture. We utilised the graphics in a way that integrates the shows into the theatre brand bringing their visual style to the front rather than the other way around.

The brand is far from conservative with its flexible new colour palette and bold typographic style, designed to suit all theatrical seasons and run proudly throughout its marketing materials. The solid new identity now tells their story and certainly made their seasonal brochure – a key focus for the theatre – stand out.

The initial season brochure saw pick-up rates increase by 20%, which have now levelled out to be consistently higher than their previous brochures. This visible brand now has longevity, enabling the inspirational theatre to continue creating more history for many years.