AH-KB gives the Kensington and Chelsea Art Weekend a paired down new identity

Entering just its second year, the Kensington & Chelsea Art Weekend has already decided to give itself a rebrand. Spanning an array of events held in a variety of galleries, studios, public spaces, museums and cultural institutions, the weekender intends to both recreate and reinforce the creative atmosphere of one of London’s most divided boroughs.

Responsibility for crafting the new identity fell to AH-KB, AKA Antonia Huber and Kelly Barrow, who have previously constructed identities for artistic institutions like Modern Art Oxford, Somerset House, Royal College of Art, and the Photographer’s Gallery.

Seen together, yellow and green tend to remind of us Daniel Farke’s high-flying Canaries. Design duo AH-KB might have a reciprocal fondness for Saturday afternoons spent at Carrow Road, but in this instance, they’ve positioned those aforementioned colours as symbols of the punk spirit that burbled up in and around Kensington and Chelsea in the latter part of the mid-1970s. Yellow and green aren’t the only bold colours that feature; the borough’s traditional hues of red and blue have also been incorporated into proceedings, finding themselves “paired down to contemporary angles and lines to reflect the festival’s key values of encouraging the public to ’look more closely at art’.”

The event organisers say: “With intelligent treatment of typeface, form and colour Barrow and Huber have been able to create a consistent look and feel which doesn’t rely solely on the logo or images in isolation but instead, work together to accommodate the images as and when they come through.”

The weekender – which takes over Design Museum, Leighton House Museum, V&A, Electric Cinema, Kensington Central Library and Chelsea Physic Garden, Serena Morton Gallery, the Bhavan, Mosaic Rooms, Chelsea Arts Club, and Goldfinger Factory, amongst other venues – takes place from 28-30 June 2019.