In the Autumn of 2024, the Barbican Centre hosted The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998, a major contemporary visual art exhibition, alongside an accompanying film programme Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering Indian cinema after 1970. I was responsible for designing the marketing campaigns for the two events, which utilised a range of physical and digital formats.
The unique challenge briefed for this project was twofold: to create a link between the visual art exhibition’s campaign design and its exhibition graphics (designed by Daly & Lyon) while maintaining the Barbican’s brand recognisability; and to ensure it was clear to audiences that the two events were being presented as complementary experiences.
Another challenge was to establish good readability, accessibility, and visual interest in the typography of the particularly long titles of the events. This was achieved by utilising the exhibition graphics’ choice of type (HAL Timezone) as a secondary face alongside the Barbican’s signature cut of Futura, and through the careful horizontal and vertical arrangement of words.
A combination of solo and joint promotional strategies for the two events were deployed, meaning each design required effectiveness both independently and when displayed alongside each other. The decision to use some inconsistencies in the typography for the titles was made from this awareness; the designs needed balance between making clear the linked nature of the exhibition and the film programme, and ensuring the designs could be interpreted without the adjacent context.
