Head for the Hills

Head for the Hills is an annual festival with an eclectic programme of music and arts. Based in Bury, Greater Manchester and produced by The Met, the festival has attracted international artists and household names to perform since its first year in 2011, with previous headliners include Badly Drawn Boy, Everything Everything, Inspiral Carpets and Public Service Broadcasting.

In 2017 Instruct worked with the festival to launch the Head for the Hills brand, debuting the new name (the festival was previously known as Ramsbottom Festival) alongside a fresh brand, new website and marketing campaign, alongside all operational items.

Drawing inspiration from the local landscape, map markings and iconography and rolling hills, we developed custom type which forms the wordmark. This developed further with a whole custom alphabet including expressive ligatures and special characters, helping to define the festival’s new voice.

Building on the typography, we developed hill illustrations based on the topography of the local area, mixing organic, nature inspired mark making with bold graphic patterns.

The brand was rolled out across out of home advertising, digital marketing and social media.

We also developed a range of merchandise including t-shirts, tote bags and even tea towels.

The poet Tony Walsh performed at the festival, leading the crowd in a chorus of his specially-commissioned piece for the festival. We developed artwork based on the poem which was used to create high end keepsake merchandise.

We developed a system of operational assets including stage dressing, site way finding, programmes and maps, ensuring the brand was embedded into every touchpoint throughout the festival.

In December 2020, Head for the Hills was reimagined as an online festival, with performances from Jesca Hoop, Stealing Sheep and others, all filmed on location at the festival’s usual site.

We developed a new winter-inspired colour palette for the event and digital-focused assets, allowing the festival to live online as a reminder of the power of live music.