Before the lockdown began, we’d started to think about changing the theatre brand. We wanted to move to something a little fresher that would work across all our media platforms and be clearer when included on our posters and promotional materials.
With that in mind we began to talk about what the brand might look like. The current logo, while interesting and represents the building, doesn’t really reflect who we are. It’s also been a bit of a puzzle over the years when people have asked us what it is. When we reply that it’s the lantern itself on top of the roof they’re often still non the wiser. We also frequently heard that it looks like the top of a baby’s bottle. Well, clearly in brand circles, it wasn’t working for us!
So Damon and Kevin began to think about what we needed and how we could take the Lantern into the 2020’s and beyond. They began by thinking about what our values are and how we work together as a theatre group. The Dilys Guite Players (DGP) and Lantern stand for, and believe in, creativity, energy, community, friendship and inclusion. These began to shape what the brand needed to convey. They tried squares, photos, abstract shapes and icon style buildings. But creating an ‘emblem’, using our actual building, is very dated and said more about the bricks and mortar than the inventiveness and originality of the group, the amazing people involved and the community as a whole. So after many variations and conversations with mini test groups, outside the theatre, the guys created a logo that has been greatly simplified.
Which brings us to the new circular logo, white lettering and ‘Lantern Red’ colour (as we call it) which were chosen as they represent the beliefs completely. Red is a colour that conveys excitement and passion. Circles are representative of life, energy, unity and love. That’s something we definitely feel at the DGP and Lantern as we’re passionate about what we do!
The new logo is also clear and easily reproduced on a variety of materials in a variety of sizes and we can change the base colour (within our chosen brand palette) very easily to suit flyers, posters etc as needed. So we've gone back to basics but, let’s be honest, they work.
So we hope you like it and we can’t wait for the theatre to be in a position to open its doors again, so we can get flyers and posters all over Sheffield with the new logo proudly displayed.
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