Hemisphere joins Manc festivities

Hemisphere is developing identities for two international festivals, Europride 2003 and Festival Europa, which take place in Manchester later this year.

Although separate events, the two are part of the same festival programme and the brands are designed to work in tandem. They comprise common features such as colourways, a specially designed Manchester typeface developed by Hemisphere in 1999 and a subliminal star icon, nicknamed the ‘Manchestar’.

Hemisphere was appointed to the Europride project (poster, right) after beating off competition from Love Creative, Egg and Dinosaur in a creative, unpaid pitch in January held by Manchester City Council. The group has just started work on promotional material including posters and street dressings for the festival, which takes place in August. It has also developed an identity system based around fruit machine icons, which was unveiled last week.

‘The brief was to be cheeky. Fruit is an “in” reference within the gay community and gave us the opportunity to feature rainbow colours, referring to different groups within the scene,’ says Hemisphere marketing director Sue Vanden.

Hemisphere’s work for Festival Europa (identity, far right) is unveiled on 20 March. The two-week celebration takes place in May around the Champions League final at Old Trafford. Hemisphere won the project on the strength of previous work.