Brand & Website DesignBarking Gecko Arts
This is a Strange Animals project. I contributed brand development, art direction and design.
Two fixtures of Perth children’s entertainment and education merged into a brand that embodies both legacy and the future.
The legacy of two unique brands
Barking Gecko Theatre and Awesome Festival had been serving the community with the highest degree of children’s entertainment, education and activities for many years. It was a natural fit to combine resources and input into their individual endeavours. Because of these distinct legacies and a spirit of cooperation, it was important to retain elements of each brand, while also forging something new.
Keeping the distinctive “Barking Gecko” moniker as the overarching brand name, Barking Gecko Arts was born. We retained Barking Gecko’s purple as a core colour focus, whilst also incorporating Awesome Festival’s more multi-colour aesthetic. We kept the gecko foot, but developed a new dynamic, friendly, and fun logotype around it. To embrace that element of the name further, we developed dot patterns mirroring the dots on a Gecko’s back as a functional decorative piece for applications.
Colour is central to the brand look and feel, and within the brand guide we provided distinctive colour combinations. Because the client wanted to retain a very set of colours, we emphasised the need for black type for accessibility, as well as the need for content sections with white backgrounds for legibility and comfort.
We envisioned that the brand could have a certain level of dynamic application, giving Barking Gecko Arts greater flexibility for new programs and events. We created a 3D representation of the logo to demonstrate this.
In addition to the Gecko patterns, illustration also plays an important role in the identity. Awesome Festival already had a beloved character, a monster called Alistair. I developed an accompanying Gecko character, and we applied both throughout the brand and website. They offered an opportunity for animation to engage with both their younger audience, as well as parents and teachers.
A suite of illustrations was created in digital and print colour variation.
Flexibility Required
When we created the design for the new Barking Gecko Arts website, we also had to consider a certain level of dynamic, annual change to it, as the Awesome Festival artwork and branding is different from year to year. We developed a set of functional panels and within our design considered which elements would likely require updates.
