Bristol Comedy Garden’s rebrand is a “playful fusion of good times and belly laughs”

It might seem an obvious choice for a comedy festival identity to try to visualise laughter, but Oat Studio’s recent rebrand for Bristol Comedy Garden is more subtle. Working with illustrator Zac Fay, the studio has embedded the suggestion of smiling into the typography itself. The final identity suggests laughter more subliminally through a curvy wordmark and supporting typeface with moon-shaped descenders on the y’s and g’s.

The identity focuses heavily on illustration; Oat Studio spent a long time trying to find an illustrator who could create something creative, but not too childish. Oat eventually teamed with Melbourne-based Zac Fay, who was briefed to create fantastical images of plants, flowers and foliage, as well as what the studio calls animal-human “hybrid characters” – which sounds far more freaky than the final imagery, don’t worry.

In a release, Oat says that the festival identity is a “playful fusion of good times and belly laughs.”

The rebrand of Bristol Comedy Garden is the first of four rebrands Oat launches with Fifty Seven Festivals, the comedy event company that also produces Greenwich Comedy Festival, Laughterama and more. Oat explains: “The festivals had been running for a number of years, and the graphics needed a boost to grab public attention and further project the personality-packed events, featuring the biggest names in UK comedy, such as Jack Dee, Sara Pascoe, Ed Gamble and Nina Conti.” To create the identity for a series of events, Oat used complimentary colour palettes and site-specific illustrations to suggest subtle differences.

In previous years, Bristol Comedy Garden utilised illustrations more sparsely, commissioning an illustrator to supply a toolkit. The revamped identity has expanded this into a fully-illustrated border.