The brief

Unboxed was a festival designed to cover a little bit of everything. It had art, performance, science, maths, magic and more, and was set to be held across the whole of the UK. However, when it was briefed into me it was described as something of a ‘creative mess’. Over £120 million had been invested in the event, and the government were getting twitchy. I was tasked with coming up with a tone of voice that would bring all the events together, along with some brand lines that would help promote it and get people interested again.

No pressure, Ash.

The process

I worked with the wonderful people at Pals to devise the brand and get things moving in the right direction. I spoke with the events’ organisers, understanding what all of the individuals involved wanted to get out of it and how they wanted to come across. In short, it was multiple chefs stirring many different pots, and I needed a way of speaking that made them sound joined up.

It would have been easy to panic at this point, but panic I did not.

I followed the event’s original idea - a celebration of creativity - and built my tone of voice around that. I pitched the organisers this paragraph:

Our copy should leave the art to do the talking. There’ll be enough mind-blowing, awe-inspiring creativity going on at the events themselves. The way we promote them should be clear, straightforward and attention-grabbing. We want people who’ve never seen live art before to see the copy and think, “This is for me”.

They liked it. I got to work.

The outcome

Big ballsy brand copy underpinned by a consistent tone of voice, spread out across print, digital, email and outdoor.

I didn’t try and tame the creative mess - I let it run wild.