Harewood Biennial 2024

The third edition of Harewood Biennial, Create/Elevate, celebrated the power of craft to surprise, inspire and bring people together to imagine new worlds. Working alongside curators Darren Phi and Ligaya Salazar we set out to build an identity for the 2025 edition of the biennial that is vibrant and accessible with a crafted, thoughtful approach.

Create/Elevate showed how artists and makers work collectively to affect societal change and promote social equity. Exhibits encouraged fresh ways for audiences to engage the spaces and gardens of Harewood House.

A bespoke typeface was crafted to reflect the wide variety of the work as well as the crafted, intricate details of the crafts on display.

Taking reference from the negative space in the custom typography, we developed patterns based on a grid of quarter circles. These became a set of vibrant overlapping patterns, inspired by the rich layers of story, craft and colour on display.

Given the grand surroundings of Harewood House we wanted to create vivid interventions that invite visitors to pause and take notice.

We also had practical limitations working within a listed building and needing a variety of interpretation solutions for different rooms in the house – some freestanding, some hanging and some entirely bespoke solutions.

Some spaces required bespoke hanging solutions for artwork as well as the interpretation. Working alongside 24 Design and Scanstick we designed a series of wooden structures to allow the artists maximum flexibility to decide how to display their work.

The exhibition also extended outside and we adapted the interpretation to work outdoors whilst still retaining a clear connection to the rest of the house.

We treated the 3D design as an extension of the 2D identity, referencing the patterns in the shape of the brackets reinforcing the structures.

The identity was designed with flexibility in mind; as well as the exhibition itself we designed a full marketing campaign, operational items like maps and large format guides, and a series of products developed alongside the retail team for sale in the gift shop.