In collaboration with live entertainment company Underbelly, Jaywing PLC yesterday unveiled an exciting new brand for the festival, the first in the world built around New Year celebrations. Previously, the festival has been voted one of the ‘Top 25 World Travel Experiences’ by the Discovery Channel, and last year saw over 100,000 revellers from over 80 countries descend on the Scottish capital over the New Year period.
Jaywing was tasked by the Underbelly team to evolve the identity of the event as the New Year celebration which ‘creates memories that last a lifetime,’ as well as broadening understanding of the full 27-day period of festivities running from 30th December 2017 to Burns Night on 25th January 2018.
The Hogmanay re-brand, which includes a new logo, brand guidelines, trailer film, website and supporting collateral, is a modern expression of Edinburgh’s rich Celtic culture and the welcoming, high-spirited nature of the city’s residents. The festival, which is being promoted to a global audience, will celebrate the event for local people – as well as visitors – as something to truly be proud of, following research undertaken into the views of the Edinburgh population.
Critical to the development of the brand was that it took on greater depth and meaning. The festival is talked about as one of a handful of things you need to do before you die, so we wanted the brand to capture this life-changing energy and to think about the event as less of an experience, and more of a ‘rite of passage’. The brand itself couldn’t be a carefully crafted logo, it had to be a human expression – one that would quite literally leave its mark.