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About

These guidelines have been created by the Barbican Studio, which is the in-house design team at the Barbican Centre, London. The Studio creates most of the visual material for the Centre. It is based in the Marketing Department and consists of four permanent designers.

The current structure of the design team was created in 2011 and coincides with a major rebranding project undertaken by North. The philosophy of the team is based on the visual guidelines North created at the time. These set out a flexible system influenced by the Centre’s vision of ‘arts without boundaries’ and includes strong visual elements that allow freedom and diversity.

For further information contact design@barbican.org.uk

Browse

Chapter
0.0 Our Voice 1.0 Invite 2.0 Show 3.0 Passion 4.0 Examples 5.0 Recap 6.0 Accessibility
Page
0.0.1 Intro 0.0.2 Values 0.0.3 Principles
1.0.1 Intro 1.0.2 Everyday 1.0.3 Personal 1.0.4 Shorten 1.0.5 Artspeak 1.0.6 Test
2.0.1 Imagine 2.0.2 Attention 2.0.3 Start 2.0.4 Concise 2.0.5 Qualifiers
3.0.1 Intro 3.0.2 Tell 3.0.3 Ask 3.0.4 Rhythm 3.0.5 Variety
4.0.1 Intro 4.0.2 Homepage 4.0.3 Season 4.0.4 Advert 4.0.5 Notice 4.0.6 Invite 4.0.7 Poster 4.0.8 Hire 4.0.9 Response 4.1.0 Report 4.1.1 Exhibition
5.0.1 Audiences 5.0.2 Cheatsheet
6.0.1 Language 6.0.2 Jargon 6.0.3 Headings 6.0.4 Links 6.0.5 Opinions 6.0.6 Images
Hire

Before

Barbican Venue Hire

In the heart of the City of London, with excellent national and international transport links, the Barbican is Europe’s largest combined arts and events centre.

The AIM Gold accredited Barbican has 21 flexible and creative spaces that can be hired for a wide range of events, from conferences, AGMs and product launches to meetings, receptions, and weddings.

Together with state-of-the-art technology and a dedicated team of event managers with years of staging world-class …

After

Make your event unforgettable

Launch a product. Host a conference. Tie the knot. Whatever you’re doing, do it at the Barbican.

Space for everyone
21 flexible, creative spaces across our iconic building — rated AIM Gold by the Meetings Industry Association
Well-connected
Hassle-free, super-fast national and international transport links
Helping hands
State-of-the-art technology and an experienced, hands-on team to bring …

What’s not working?

  • There’s a clear, functional headline — but it’s not inspiring the reader to take action
  • It opens with a secondary message: is being in ‘the heart of the City of London’ the most exciting thing we have to say?
  • Dense, hard-to-read paragraphs

What’s changed?

  • Using a call to action in the headline: ‘Make your event unforgettable’
  • Using headers to break down the detail (and make our key points easier to scan)

Source: Venue hire information

Examples
4.0.8