B-Side Multimedia Arts Festival

After a successful festival in 2008, b-side multimedia arts festival has grown into a highly regarded international arts biennial, taking place in Weymouth and Portland, Dorset. It presents an ambitious, experimental and contemporary programme of artists’ commissions in sound, installation, film, photography and visual and live arts in unusual and unexpected locations. In 2011 it was included in the national portfolio funding programme by Arts Council England.

We first worked with the b-side festival committee during the run up to their second festival in 2010, when we developed new festival branding that reflected the contemporary output of b-side.

The work Wired Canvas undertook for b-side felt like a really creative, collaborative process. They were able to distill our many needs as a new organisation into a workable plan of action.

b-side’s name (and ethos) is inspired by the B-side of vinyl records, which are often more interesting and experimental than the A-sides; hence the strapline: ‘Explore the flip side of the sea-side’. Some of our favourite combinations of photography, art and graphic deign can be found on the packaging of music, and this lead us to look at record labels and sleeves for design inspiration, in particular Peter Saville’s work for Factory Records.

Once we had developed the festival branding, we also produced the festival website, programme, print adverts, flyers, posters, signs, e-newsletters and social marketing campaigns.

Rob and Alice are ultimately great people to work with, they have never let us down and have an innate sense of fun.

- Sandy Wilderspin, b-side festival producer.

However it was 2012 that proved to be b-side’s biggest year yet. The festival coincided with the Olympic and Paralympic sailing events held in Weymouth and Portland, and was also part of the Maritime Mix – London 2012 Cultural Olympiad by the Sea. The programme was bigger and better than ever, so we redeveloped the festival website in Drupal, an open-source content management system, allowing the site to be easily updated and archive old content. We also produced a campaign of print and online marketing, including a pocket-sized programme, signage, t-shirts, e-newsletters and even produced a newspaper in 48 hours!

The brand has become a recognizable local presence, synonymous with quality cultural events in the Weymouth and Portland area.