Reform Creative brands Out to Dance event

Manchester-based consultancy Reform Creative has designed the branding for Visit Blackpool’s Out to Dance event, which will take place during the city’s annual dance festival in May.

Reform Creative was appointed to the job last October, following a four-way pitch in September, and tasked with creating an identity, supporting literature, advertising and online media for the event, according to Claire Turner, events development manager for Visit Blackpool.

Out to Dance, which will run from 22-25 May, aims to take various dance disciplines which have traditionally been performed indoors, such as ballroom, street dance, line dancing, jazz, Northern soul and ballet, into the open air in various locations around the city.

Reform Creative designer Rich Smalley, who worked on the project, says, ‘Blackpool has a bit of a reputation for formal ballroom dancing, and we were keen to move away from this and reach out to different generations.

‘With the logo we wanted something bright and uninhibited; the dance steps moving outside the square are representative of Out to Dance taking dance outside venues.’

Smalley says the campaign will launch with a teaser flyer, which will be sent out next month. Virals, a poster campaign and a website will follow, before the identity is applied across various campaigns during the festival.

He adds, ‘We’re looking at ideas like pseudo-flyposting, where the posters are applied at jaunty angles, and clean graffiti, where we spray-wash around a stencil of the logo on dirty paving stones, so the logo is left in the dirt.

‘We’re also looking at putting the logo on adhesive tiles, which can be set down in public areas to create impromptu dancefloors.’

Visit Blackpool’s Claire Turner says, ‘Reform really understood that we wanted to incorporate different dance styles, when it could have been easy to go down the traditional route. ‘It also really thought hard about how the identity could be applied to different locations, such as pavements and bus stops.’