The brief

Hull had a bit of a reputation when it was awarded UK City of Culture rights for 2017. Working with the team at Jaywing, it was my job to help change that, with a confident tone of voice executed over every kind of comms.

The process

The city of Hull has a proud history, one where it’s rejected red phone boxes, prevented civil war and invented chip spice, which is honestly something the rest of the world is missing out on. But in recent times it’s gained a reputation for being a bit of a dead end. As UK City of Culture, it was time for that reputation to be redefined. I started by doing a TONNE of research, finding out all about Hull’s past, its famous faces, its ambitions and its unique attitude. I discovered that people from the city are dead proud to call it home, and that personality was what I hung my hat on.

By working closely with the team at Hull, I developed tone of voice guidelines that captured the city’s spirit, and turned them into brand messaging that would live across all kinds of media. There was signage up around the event spaces, there was livery on trains, video, radio, social media, print… name it, and I wrote something for it.

The outcome

You couldn’t go near Hull for over a year without seeing some of my copy. The words packed a punch, and couldn’t be for anywhere else. It remains one of the most fun projects I’ve ever worked on.