Pontio is Bangor University’s £45 million Arts & Innovation Centre, it is the largest single investment in the Bangor area in a generation. The space is home to a Theatre, Studio theatre, Cinema, Students Union, spacious lecture theatres, social learning spaces, bar, café and a design and innovation centre.
Supporting a wide range of activities all year round, ranging from performances and workshops to exhibitions and courses. Over six months we worked with the Pontio team at Bangor University to redevelop their brand from one that was focused on establishing the project to one that is public facing. Through mapping our initial research we began to understand that the bold architectural design of the building already captured a positive attitude within the people in both the town and the University. This led us to focus our work around the spaces and uses of Pontio. Being a public space the building would naturally be home to collisions between the public, university students and staff allowing a blend of thinking and creativity to be past between groups.
Pontio Arts Centre
Taking these spaces from the architecture and breaking it into individual elements, we allowed them to move and collide, signifying the idea of the project. Creating unique shapes and reducing brandmark into it’s purest form. One of the key decisions we found during the process was looking the sub-branding and breaking down elements of the brand along with the buildings uses. However it soon became clear that the brand should reflect the use of the spaces in a flat hierarchy.
One that an artist could be just at home using technology, as a computer programmer taking inspiration from a new dance piece. It was not for us to break the use of the building down: an open canvas for the user. The final result is a brand that supports and encourages a unique mix of art and innovation taking place in the spaces.
We created an adaptive moving brand that could be utilised across digital, print and through the building itself. Many members of the wider community are already a part of Pontio - through participating in the Stepping Stones artistic programme, visiting the Pontio Shop on Bangor High Street and participating in other activities.
