Green Man Festival

Towards the end of 2012, we were commissioned by the team behind Green Man Festival to conceive and roll out a fresh identity for 2013, including a new website painting a picture of the festival’s unique experience.

Green Man Festival takes place over four days at the foot of the Black Mountains in Glanusk, Wales each August (15th-18th August this year). Beloved for its truly independent ethos and eclectic programming, the festival is now in its eleventh year and going strong. Headliners for 2013 include Band Of Horses, Edwyn Collins, John Cale, Local Natives, Erol Alkan and scores more.

Our director Alex Ostrowski explained how we began the project:

“We started by asking a million questions and immersing ourselves in the materials from previous years. Pretty early on, we knew we wanted to do something unexpected with the Green Man himself… we wanted to find a way for audiences to feel his presence everywhere, rather than just in a logo.”

The festival is named after an ancient nature deity believed to originate from Pagan times. The Green Man represents nature’s wildness, and is known to be ‘The Lord of Misrule’ with a mischievous side.

We decided to imply the Green Man’s omnipresence as an all-seeing deity, by transferring his energy from the singularity of a portrait-based logo into a more flexible visual language of organic elements. We also developed the Green Man’s tone of voice, naming the festival’s ten distinct areas, each blessed with a unique indigenous symbol. Names include ‘Babbling Tongues’ (the spoken word area), ‘Little Folk’ (the kids area), and ‘Fortune Falls’ (the waterfall & ponds area).

We commissioned poet Kibbo Kift to create a stirring statement from the Green Man, excerpts from which flash up on the Green Man website intermittently during the user journey:

Green Man Festival

From website to wristbands, we worked with illustrator Sarah Mazzetti to develop the Green Man’s world of pagan-tinged wild strangeness. Mazzetti helped to conjure an exciting picture of the festival, felt across maps, area illustrations, print matter, and the website.

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

We also developed a custom typeface for the project; drawn, woodblock-printed and faithfully digitised with help from Colophon Foundry. The typeface, available in four weights of varying ‘roughness’ from the physical printing process, contains unique symbols for each festival area.

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival

Green Man Festival poster

Visit the Green Man Festival website.

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Comments

Appropriate and unique style and colours + strong story told by illustration = strong identity. Really love it. Looks like a great line-up, too!

Beautiful execution – really love the type, and feels very appropriate for the festival. Can see this having legs and developing with layers over the years…

Hah, I saw an advert for this year’s Green Man and went ‘Ooh, that is a nice typeface, not seen that before’ followed by ‘and those are really nice illustrations…’ but I didn’t expect to see it here.
It is great work. From what is shown here I am not sure how clear it communicates the essentials, like whether the identities for each area will be clear in practice. I wish I was able to go this year and find out! John Cale? Yes please.
Nice html 5 work on the website as well.

Love how the combination of illustration, colour and typeface hits you on the website, it’s so fresh!

Definitely sums up the festival for me and makes me even more excited to get out there in the mountains.

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