SomeOne reveals architecture-inspired branding for Devonshire Quarter

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SomeOne has designed the visual identity for the Devonshire Quarter, a cultural and sporting development in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

The development is an upgrade of what was formerly known as the Devonshire Park complex, which comprises several theatres, as well as tennis and sporting facilities. Various tennis tournaments are hosted here throughout the year, including the Aegon International.

The new development will include a new conference space, restaurant and café facilities, improved tennis facilities and public spaces, as well as restoring three listed buildings within the complex.

“Cultural and tennis destination”

SomeOne was commissioned to create the brand strategy, identity and come up with a new name for the development, with the aim of positioning it as “cultural and tennis destination”, says the consultancy.

Its new name – Devonshire Quarter – looks to better describe what the development is and does. “The Quarter is where sport, art, theatre and people meet,” says SomeOne founder and executive strategic creative director, Simon Manchipp. “It’s not a park you meander through, it’s a series of interlinked venues. Describing it as a quarter was a natural progression.”

Lead designer at SomeOne, Vyara Zlatilova, has designed a series of multicoloured illustrations based on digitally scanned images of the buildings and original architectural drawings, which look to reflect the the multiple functions of the quarter.

“Colour audit”

“This overlap between each venue is visually depicted by placing one of the architectonic illustrations over another – creating a third space – the Devonshire Quarter,” says SomeOne design director, Lee Davies.

The multicoloured palette is based on SomeOne’s “colour audit” around Eastbourne, during which the team documented the colours seen in and around the local architecture. These colours were then softened slightly to reflect the fact that the area has high levels of sunshine.

The consultancy has also designed a bespoke wordmark for the logo, based on the “D” and “Q” in Devonshire Quarter, which will be used across all communications and signage once the development is complete.

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3 responses to “SomeOne reveals architecture-inspired branding for Devonshire Quarter

  1. Creating a third space? Per-LEASE.

    Seriously?

    New levels of nonsense — NO ONE outside of the snake oil sales room would get that one.

    Look bast the patronising basic bright bold colours — and what do you actually have?

    Not very much.

    The dumbing down of design continues apace.

  2. “…the logo, based on the “D” and “Q” in Devonshire Quarter”

    – which when combined visually represents a ‘1/2’

    Well Done!

  3. As someone with experience in design for branded communication, I do like the execution behind the D&Q logo blend and that is all I can like.

    From a critical point of view, the architectural visualisation of the buildings is more than superficial. If the studio’s work has only been devoted to working on “digitally scanned images of the buildings and original architectural drawings”, then they need to re-think their way of thinking for next time. Looking at original architectural drawings doesn’t mean magically transferring those vectors into Illustrator and digitising the image. When working on architectural drawings, a designer knows the language of line thicknesses of all of the different design components in a building – wall line thickness, window line thickness (which will be thinner than that of the walls and doors), column line thickness etc. By plotting using different line thicknesses, you tell a story of what the building is about6. So all these parameters have been ignored in the current outcome and that has made the final illustrations flat and naive.
    Also, they needn’t have worked on the entire buildings as a drawings, they could have been more flexible by extrapolating individual, recognisable elements from each building and then – have them all combined in one landscape banner. So the project only sounds playful and imaginative.
    Well done on the logo and I do respect the time and effort on the facade visualisations..

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