Iris creates new identity for Sheffield

The new identity, to be used in city-branded events, has been developed from the Iris-designed bid documents Sheffield used for its losing UK City of Culture proposal (pictured). Sheffield lost out to Derry in the competition.

Having designed the competition identity, Iris won a pitch to create the bid document in December 2009 before starting on the city identity in February. ’We found that there was no visual coherence across [Sheffield’s] brand before,’ says Iris creative director David Wood.

A marque has been created which references the city’s historical associations with craft through a stencilled look and feel. Wood says, ’It’s a custom font we developed with Fontsmith and it does have a nod to the industrial past, but we mainly wanted it to show authenticity and independence.’

The identity has already been incorporated into promotional materials for the Sheffield Food Festival, as well as the Tramlines music festival and the forthcoming Off The Shelf literary festival. Iris will create all promotional materials for Off The Shelf, but the identity may be used by other event organisers, at their discretion, between now and September.

On 8 September the brand will be officially launched alongside Made, a Sheffield-branded entrepreneurs’ conference hosted by former Dragon’s Den panellist Doug Richards.