New year, new ideas

Every now and then, it’s time for something new. A new wardrobe, a new haircut, a new pair of shoes…something to make you feel refreshed and excited. So as we step into 2019, in the absence of flying cars and rocket boots, we’ve given your Festival a bit of a visual makeover. We’ve loved the process of working with designers to develop the logo, choosing the colours, and refining every detail to create an all-new look for the Ryedale Festival – and we hope you’re as pleased as we are with the results. As keen supporters of the Festival we wanted to give you the first sighting ahead of its Launch on March 15th!

Rebranding is so much more than just a new logo or a colour scheme though. The key is consistency, so that no matter what we produce – be it a poster, a concert programme, a banner or a mug – you know immediately that it’s Ryedale Festival. We were lucky enough to be offered pro-bono services from colleagues of Festival Trustee Geoff Potter, at the London-based communications and branding consultancy Instinctif Partners, who we worked with to create this bubbly, beautiful logo. The excellent designers who developed the logo gave us the ideas and the tools we needed to pass on to our in-house designer, Pascal, to work on the next stages of completing the rebrand. See if you can spot where he’s used the dots from the logo in other parts of our new designs when you receive your 2019 brochures; just one of the little touches he’s integrated to tie everything together.

Upon giving the logo an outing at recent meetings, the question has been – what does it mean? One of the things we like most about it is the versatility ñ it can represent a sound wave, an orchestra, an audience, champagne bubbles (maybe we should have more at the Festival!) or the shape of rippling water. But mostly it’s a really strong design that we feel sure will become synonymous with the Ryedale Festival.

Weíre also working with York-based company YorkMix to create a brand new website which will launch with the release of the summer programme in March.Youíll possibly have already experienced the new online ticketing system (TicketSolve) when buying tickets for the Spring Weekend, which will of course be integrated into the website to create an excellent user experience for you. As you read in Lornaís last membership letter, this system is also how memberships will be managed from now on, so it ties everything together in the office and creates a brilliant integrated system. More on the new ticketing system in Lornaís membership letter on the back page.

We hope that you feel, as we do, that this face-lift is a great thing for the Festival and helps portray to newcomers and seasoned festival-goers alike the quality and friendly, welcoming atmosphere that Ryedale Festival is renowned for – but also represents our desire to be forward-facing as we continue to bring you the best in classical music through Chris’s excellent and innovative programme of concerts and collaborations. Naomi Taylor