ANTI-RACISM FESTIVAL IDENTITY BY LIPPA PEARCE FOR TRADES UNION CONGRESS

Twickenham consultancy Lippa Pearce resolutely rejected any hint of a black and white colour scheme while developing its identity for Respect, a free anti-racism festival being held in London’s Finsbury Park on 20 July.

The design is currently bright orange and blue, and can be seen on a CD cover to be released on 24 June. The consultancy is angling for the client to let it use a substantial number of colours for posters, leaflets, T-shirts, banners and the festival’s printed programme.

‘We did start off with black and white, the positive and the negative looking at each other, but decided this route should definitely be avoided,’ says Domenic Lippa, who acted as design director to designer Paul Tunnicliffe’s concepts.

The Trades Union Congress approached Lippa Pearce after the consultancy designed The Downlow music magazine (DW 24 March 1995), which is directed at the youth market and encompasses racism issues.

‘The TUC didn’t want this to be a political event, so we steered clear of comradeship images,’ says Lippa. ‘It aims to join culturally diverse groups, but with no speeches – nothing heavy, lots of fun and vibrancy.’

Respect’s symbol combines an equals sign, a sun and the idea of two halves coming together. It employs heavy and light versions of Helvetica Neue typeface.

The device appears alone, and also with type across it. ‘Basically we bastardised the logo we designed for Respect, turned it on its head and used it in different ways to be dynamic. We didn’t want it to be uniform or corporate,’ Lippa adds.