Create the next logo for Lagos Theatre Festival

Lagos Theatre Festival

Performance in unconventional spaces

- Background

The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and build trust between them worldwide.

The British Council has, for two years, been working on theatre projects in Nigeria. Alongside the presentation of excellent UK work in Lagos we have sought to offer opportunities for professional exchange between Nigerian and British artists.

One of the great strengths of current UK performing arts practice is the use of non-traditional spaces for the presentation of drama and dance: train stations, unused factories and warehouses, underground tunnels, school halls, and houses and apartments are all examples of spaces which theatre and dance professional have, to great acclaim, commandeered for the presentation of their art. The artists have not turned each of these spaces into traditional theatres by bringing in staging, theatre lighting and theatre-style seating. Rather they have made new works which respond to the new environment, allowing the choice of space to fully influence the work itself.

- The project for which we need a logo

On 16 & 17 February 2013 the British Council will work together to create a festival of drama and dance in partnership with EKO Hotel and Suites on Victoria Island entitled Lagos Theatre Festival.

The festival will consist of two components: alongside the presentation of a UK production in the EKO Hotel conference centre, we will host a mini-festival of site-specific theatre and dance productions which have been made bespoke for the festival by three Nigerian directors in theatre companies.

- Our vision

We hope that alongside an excellent UK theatre production the site-specific mini-festival will offer an unusual and innovative glimpse of some of the most interesting Nigerian theatre and dance practitioners. We want the audience to be surprised by excellent work in unusual spaces, and we want other artists, venues and sponsors to see that the few working theatres in Lagos are not the only potential venues for excellent work. We want to create a buzz about an unusual idea.

- The audience

We want to attract three audience types:
- Local theatre and dance artists and those actively involved in making or promoting performing arts. These are risk-taking, entrepreneurial artists and associates: young, culturally aware, and interested in the cutting edge.
- Existing audiences for performing arts. These range from cutting edge young Lagotians to more formal and reserved audiences for traditional drama.
- Targeted businesses and sponsors with a view to finding sponsors for future artistic collaborations. They want to see a clean, professional marketing strategy which they can envision partnering with in the future.

Much of the Marketing will be viral via Facebook and Twitter. Therefore the main Title (Lagos Theatre Festival) must be readable in Facebook and twitter icons which accompany posts. Also, logos which fit in a square box will be more useful than those which need a rectangle. 

Logo will need bold colours.