We have a strict policy of not producing unpaid creative work (for many reasons that we’ve written about elsewhere). That sometimes leads to awkward conversations with less experienced potential clients. So it was refreshing when the British Council team approached us with a fee for the creative pitch.

Using our pinboards as points of inspiration, we explored numerous different approaches to this exciting brief.

By the end of that initial exploration we were pretty clear about our recommended route. And we were pleased that our clients were excited by the designs and commissioned us to implement them for this global project.

The British Council were using this anniversary as a way to forge new partnerships and reinforce existing connections with partners from the arts, education, civil society, science and digital sectors to coordinate a programme of global activity throughout 2019.

We needed to create a visual language that could be used at any level of amplification: from a discrete logo on an academic report through to building-sized projections at festivals.

And we knew that the majority of communication would be digital, via an active blog and multiple social media platforms (in different countries).

We approached the task through a robust, grid-based framework.

By spacing and aligning the letters, the lock-up of words allowed us to use a double-slash between them (an affectation that felt particularly appropriate to the theme of the world wide web).

A yellow and black colour palette ensured a consistent colour match between all sorts of different screens and quality of printed materials.

And the logo was constructed as a kit of parts, allowing for different variations to be used in different ways, depending on the nature of the campaign materials and the partner who was using it.

The British Council team conceived five topics, headings under which any activity would be commissioned and programmed through the year.

Part of our brief was to source and supply imagery that could bring these topics to life, in news articles and social media.  To keep budgets in-check we knew we’d have to use mostly stock-imagery, but we didn’t want anything to feel contrived. So we commissioned the wonderful video artist Andrew Lyster to create a ‘textured backdrop’ for each theme, to tie together the disparate content.

The season was broken into five thematic strands, each with its own specific short video trailer. And we cut them all into a full-season version with audio…