The Click brands the National Centre for Writing

The Click has created the identity for the proposed National Centre for Writing, which is scheduled to open in Norwich in 2016.

The centre will house writers’ spaces, teaching facilities, a café and a basement performance space. There will also be a 120-seat events space and apartments for writers in residence.

The project is being led by Writers’ Centre Norwich in partnership with Norwich City Council, University of East Anglia and Norfolk County Council. Some of the £8.5 million needed to create the centre has already been raised through Arts Council funding.

Plans for the National Centre for Writing follow Norwich’s appointment of UNESCO City of Literature in 2012. The Click developed the city’s bid identity – a hand-written logo which uses author Ian McEwan’s hand-writing.

For its National Centre for Writing identity, The Click has created a logo based around an ‘N’ created from two pen points.

Bobby Burrage, creative director of The Click, says, ‘The new identity responds to one of the centre’s key objectives – a place where minds can meet.

National Centre for Writing literature
National Centre for Writing literature

‘The mark is constructed from two pens meeting in a square which, in turn, creates an ‘N’ for National.’

The Click has also created support literature for the project, which Burrage says is designed to ‘formally introduce the organisation, communicate its purpose and to help generate funding and sponsorship’.

National Centre for Writing literature
National Centre for Writing literature

Burrage says that The Click will continue to work with the centre as plans progress, to create projects such as website and signage.

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Comments
  • Matt - November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    There’s too much white space resulting in a lack of focus on the marque; and the alignment of the type makes it all worse… 🙁

  • Shaughn McGurk November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    It seems strange that the symbol focuses on the most generic aspect of the name. Surely the important aspect of the centre is that it is for writing. I’m sure the negative spaces in a W could have been put to similar use – and with less white space. I agree with Matt, it does make the marque a feel rather anaemic and flimsy while I think the art and craft of writing deserves something a little more weighty.

  • Jonathan Smith November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Afraid I have to agree…at first I liked the double take…but there is just something not right with this.
    And the lock up of the logo with the type just looks and feels all wrong…

    Sorry!

  • D Conran November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    You’re all right – you focus on the pencil tips, then have to refocus on the finite bounding box to see the ‘N’ – it actually gives me a headache!

    Don’t understand why you would centre align the text when placed next to the square icon. It looks terrible as the ‘for’ overhangs the rest of the type and the ‘writing’ looks like someone has accidentally hit the tab key.

    Old school logo gone wrong!

  • Shaughn McGurk November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    It’s easy to be negative, not wrong, just easy. Especially when all you’ve done is seen one article. But gut reactions count, the intended audience of this identity won’t have the opportunity for reflection, they’ll just take it at face value.

    However, they will probably also see it in a greater, more informative context than a logo by itself. It’ll be on a publication, a poster, a sign.

    With that in mind I went to The Click’s website to investigate further. While I stand by my earlier comments regarding the execution, I think the concept of “A place where minds can meet” is both interesting and powerful.

    Also, the print work that The Click have created, reproduced in much greater quantity than on this page, is an absolute delight. A deft graphic hand has worked its magic across some pages to create a beautiful experience for the reader. The elegant typography and restrained colour palette, the judicious use of overprinting creates a reading experience worthy of the National Centre for Writing. My cap is doffed to The Clink, but the chink in the armour is still the marque.

  • Shaughn McGurk November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    My apologies. In the last sentence of the above comment ‘The Clink’ should of course read “The Click”.

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