Hat Trick identity for Ebbsfleet Valley

Hat Trick Design Consultants is set to begin work on the identity for Ebbsfleet Valley, a vast mixed use development in north Kent, which received planning go ahead at the end of 2005.

The 400ha brownfield site, which sits adjacent to the Bluewater shopping centre, will be developed by Land Securities over the next 20 years. It will offer 10 000 homes, 557 000m2 of office space and 180ha of parks and lakes, with the area divided into different ‘village’ zones. At the heart of the site will be Ebbsfleet International, a Eurostar terminal running services to St Pancras, with a journey time of just 15 minutes.

Hat Trick won the work in a credentials and strategy pitch against Pentagram, Wolff Olins and To The Point, just over a year ago, although creative work was put on hold until planning permission was granted, according to the project’s marketing manager Deirdre Alldis-Waters. She has tasked the consultancy with designing an identity that will run for the course of the site’s development period.

‘As the project runs over 20 years, the challenge is to create an identity that won’t get tired or need too much refreshing. It is a tall challenge,’ she says.

The consultancy has created graphics and signage for The Observatory, a marketing and information building located in the centre of the site, and it will also develop a signage system to operate throughout the region, after the main branding launches this spring.

‘They now need a consistent way of talking about the development, a personality and identity. The question of how the masterbrand relates to the villages is still to be worked out,’ says Hat Trick creative director Gareth Howat. This initial work will include a website and ‘spirit of vision’ book, he adds.