Dan Griffiths – BA (Hons) Graphic and Design Media, London College of Communication
When Dan Griffiths was given the brief of rebranding a community event, he knew it had to be a music festival. Instead of developing a widely known event, like Glastonbury or Reading/Leeds, Dan wanted to elevate the presence of something smaller, with social causes at their heart.
Eventually, Dan chose Eden Sessions: a music festival in the heart of Cornwall’s Eden Project, which encourages concert audiences to think about their impact on the planet.
For Dan, though, something didn’t quite sit right with the name. Stepping back and seeing the project as a whole, he decided to change the name from 'Eden Sessions' to 'Journey to Eden'.
“The idea behind the music festival is for it to be more than just a music festival – I wanted my branding to reflect that larger vision,” he says. “I wanted it to be a journey to the festival, and the journey in life to bettering ourselves and the planet.” Dan also noted the religious imagery associated with Eden, and how for many, travelling to Cornwall to see their favourite band can be somewhat of a pilgrimage.
It was time for the visual language to reflect the multiple themes encompassed in the festival and the Eden Project itself. A deep-dive into the ethos and imagery of the Eden Project kept throwing up the same hexagon. This shape and the name were his starting points, and from there, Journey to Eden began.
Dan focused on blending the geometric with the organic to reflect the marriage of human-led science and nature in the Eden Project, where man-made biodomes are home to thousands of species from the natural world. At the heart of Dan’s rebrand is the need to understand nature, improve our carbon footprint and to remember the importance of conserving our planet.
To reflect these two worlds coming together, he united fluid and rigid visuals across the branding. Sans-serif and serif fonts are combined in the typography, and the flower motif is comprised of the hexagons seen in the iconic domes of the Eden Project, but also in many chemical formulas.
The line-up for the festival is also comprised of artists with an environmental conscience, as well as those with a mix of structured and experimental sounds, from Ben Howard and Radiohead to Gorillaz and Idles.
instead of just picking a colour palette he liked – or colours commonly associated with the theme of nature – he picked 4 images of the Eden Project and chose his favourite colours. The result is a colour palette so vibrant it looks as though they're artificial, and not directly taken from natural flowers.
Not a single decision during the project was made lightly. “Every single decision I make is going to have an impact on my work,” Dan says. “So, I spend the time to make sure the decision is worthwhile and effective, and not just rash, or because I like it.”
This extensive thought process wasn’t something Dan has always done. Looking back on how he’s developed since being at UAL, Dan says “It's been an incredible journey to see not just how my taste in designing has changed but my focus and my thought processes have changed as well. I wouldn’t be able to put the level of detail I put into it now in first year, because in first year I was very one-track mind. I knew what I wanted so I would just design that and create that,” he says.
“My thought process and design processes has evolved so much from first year that I've been able to apply that nuanced cherry picking of certain elements to have meaning.”
Now graduating, when considering the projects he wants to work on in the future, Dan is eager to continue in the same vein as the Journey to Eden project. “I've always enjoyed social design the most. So, when I get given a project, if it’s trying to make a positive change or impact, my enthusiasm for that project increases. I find it enjoyable, and a fun challenge, to then really dive into the project.”
“I want the work I do to really mean something - not just to me, but to other people too.”
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