Branding Lincolnshire's biggest event - step by step

Moving away from our previous colourful and illustrative designs, we presented a range of ideas from typographic to photographic, that could showcase the huge variety and history of the Show. A clear favourite of the LAS and Lincolnshire Showground team was the idea of combining elements old and new into a collage that could feel like a hyper-realistic snapshot of the Show in motion.

Creating a flexible event brand

The first thing to consider when working on branding for an event is the sheer variety of applications the design could end up being used on, the finished graphic will end up on anything from a poster to email footers, stickers and flyers. So we knew we’d have to make the main image responsive by removing, moving and adding elements depending on how much space we had to work with.

The big idea

In the concept stage we worked on the idea of a hand holding old images from shows past, reflecting on how much the event had grown over the years. While we eventually moved away from this idea you can see how it influenced the final design, with animals and objects appearing to all come out from a central point.

Utilising a mix of original photographs from previous events, stock imagery and photo manipulation we were able to get a great variety of animals, vehicles and objects that were to feature in the 2019 show. This included a tank and steam powered tractor that were manufactured in Lincolnshire, the RAF Falcons, Showground clock tower and a little nod to the Stewards who make the show possible.

The biggest challenge with any large collage or photo manipulation is getting the colour, tone and lighting correct. This can be especially difficult when your photography comes from so many different sources with cameras, weather and resolution all affecting the final shot. The best way to overcome these issues is to paint new light and shadow onto each object and match the warmth and saturation across each of the images.

We edited each element individually at a high resolution so that we could use them either together in the main graphic or individually elsewhere. To give the appearance of an explosion heading out from the central clock tower towards the viewer we added motion blur, dust, steam, flying grass and dirt. You can see above the comparison of the original tank and the final version after all the adjustments have been made.

Once this was complete we replaced each object in a draft document with its updated counterpart, making small adjustments to location and scale. All that’s left from there is to add in environmental lighting, shadows, confetti, daisies, bunting, feathers and clouds… phew! You can watch this all come together in the time-lapse video below.

What's next?

The Show is a highlight of Lincolnshire’s social calendar and we had a great time working on, and visiting it in 2019. We look forward to collaborating with the LAS and Showground team again very soon in preparations for an even bigger 2020 show!