Brands that want to make a meaningful impression need to create consistency between their digital and of‌fline presence. Field’s recent collaboration with Manchester Literature Festival is a model example of the impact of reconciling these two sides of the marketing landscape. This was a project which quickly gained momentum, as the scope grew from web design brief to social media, print and out-of-home overhaul.

Every October Manchester Literature Festival brings together some of the most inspiring minds in literature, in a schedule of events featuring prestigious industry names and hosted in well-known Manchester venues. They approached Field to redesign their website, to give it a contemporary lift and respond to the post-Covid change in the way people buy tickets. Clear objectives were set: establish greater brand awareness, highlight the festival’s programme, and emphasise their Children & Young People offering.

Evolving the visual brand

Field saw the website redesign as an excellent opportunity to update and refine Manchester Literature Festival’s existing logo, while also expanding the brand’s visual identity. As part of the updated design, they created a set of iconic geometric shapes based on historical book spine labels, a series of icons to illustrate Manchester Literature Festival’s core offerings, and a collection of interchangeable and modular illustrations and patterns. A new defined colour palette influenced by classic mid century design was introduced, designed to be dialled up or down to work for both the main festival site and children and young people’s section.

For children and young people, the offering was brought to life with animated and updated versions of the main illustrations series. Featuring a family of pencils, a wise globe for World Book Day and a few cheeky reading lamps, aimed at appealing to children and families alike.

Modernising the website

Field crafted a user-friendly web navigation centred around Manchester Literature Festival’s core pillars. They married a clean layout with the new icons to quickly connect people to the festival’s line-up, hone in on the most pivotal CTAs, and create a smooth user-experience.

The reformed site positions Manchester Literature Festival as a reliable, accessible brand that is in touch with its audiences, and Field developed a bespoke Content Management System (CMS) to further support this. In the agile new CMS, content can easily be adapted, added and removed – meaning MLF can update the site as their plans evolve, whilst sustaining a streamlined UX.

Visit the MLF website here.

Beyond digital

Off the back of the highly successful website revamp, Manchester Literature Festival commissioned an overhaul of their print and online marketing. Field galvanised the new look across Manchester Literature Festival's online landscape, adapting the eye-catching visual for social media headers and images, including a suite tailored to the distinct Children & Young People identity.

Meanwhile flyers, leaflets, and event pull-up banners brought the icons to life in public spaces, fostering a tangible connection with Manchester Literature Festival’s communities. An exciting component of this physical suite of assets, was the design of out of home advertising, which magnified the visual all across Manchester city centre. The striking out of home created an immersive presence and drew attention to the Manchester Literature Festival’s new identity in a busy urban environment, on an attention-grabbing scale.

This project epitomises Field’s expertise in designing a cohesive brand and uniting it across channels, including the tactile world. Manchester Literature Festival’s reimagined website and identity capture the essence of the festival and its surrounding communities, whilst upholding its legacy and grounding in Manchester’s vibrant culture.

To see this work out in the wild, across such a culturally-iconic location as Manchester, has been an incredibly proud moment for Field. What started as a web brief turned into a powerful cross-channel transformation and a truly meaningful leap forward for the client and the communities they serve.