LEP: Creative catalyst

An initiative developed by the LEP to drive growth and establish an ecosystem for creative businesses. The programme funded the Leeds City Region Indie TV and Film Development Fund, delivered in partnership with Screen Yorkshire, supporting independent production companies through the COVID-19 crisis.

Brief

The programme launched off the back of Channel 4’s move to the region, so the identity needed to carry a visible thread of that relationship — Channel 4’s audience is the same pool of people the scheme supports.

• Create an identity that complements the LEP brand with its own distinct style

• Move away from a public-sector look to attract private investors

• Define a clear visual system for each strand of the scheme

Challenges

• Working within the constraints of the corporate font while still needing to “look different”

• Limited photography

Rationale

To carry forward the Channel 4 alliance, I used the block shapes from C4’s “4” campaign as a foundation, desaturating their colour palette to signal the next step of the partnership rather than a direct copy. Each strand of the scheme — mentoring, support, accelerator, export, collective — needed to be instantly recognisable, so I built a shape system rooted in the LEP’s “be the spark” campaign, crossing over the two concepts into something new. For the tagline treatment, the distortion evokes movement — dance, paint dripping across a canvas — while repetition nods to automation, from screen printing to digital art. On photography: West Yorkshire Combined Authority has always centred the person in their materials, usually looking directly into camera; here, I chose a more intimate approach — creatives caught mid-work rather than posed.

Impact

The Creative Catalyst programme was created on the back of the Creative Industries Fund, which ran in 2021 and supported 127 businesses. It highlighted the need for innovation support. The video shows some of the outcomes of that fund.