EDIT has helped English National Ballet (ENB) refresh its brand to engage new audiences on new platforms.
The company, which recently celebrated its 75th birthday, performs a mix of classic and contemporary shows across the UK and around the world. It also runs a wide range of community programmes, “to take world-class ballet to the widest possible audience.”
There were several reasons the ENB needed to rethink its identity, explains Lisa Leigh, its director of marketing and communications.
Firstly, post-COVID, there was a change in the audiences, with 15% of the previous punters not returning. The new audience demographics are quite mixed, but Leigh says they wanted to connect in particular with the 25 to 34 age bracket.
EDIT’s new identity work for English National Ballet
Also coming out of the pandemic, the ENB, like many organisations, upped its digital output and needed a brand that worked better in that context. In 2023, they also appointed a new artistic director, Aaron Watkin, and needed to make sure, “the brand strategy and the artistic vision were really aligned.”
And finally, the tough economic climate has intensified pressure on anyone looking to sell tickets. “We needed to stand out, and to make sure that people had a good reason to spend their time and their money with us,” Leigh explains.
The first phase involved working with strategists at Boardroom Consulting to refine the ENB’s positioning.
“I think part of the challenge is that the word ‘ballet’ comes with its own preconceptions,” Leigh says. “So many people see ballet as a closed or confusing world. They think it’s only for a certain type of person. But English National Ballet is not like that – we’re warm, we’re welcoming, and everyone’s invited.”
That accessibility threads through ENB’s history, from its founders’ mission back in 1950, right through to initiatives like Dance for Parkinson’s, which helps people living with the disease to find joy and engagement through dance.
“It quickly became clear that English National Ballet’s founding principles were as alive and relevant today as ever,” says Boardroom Consulting partner Claire Rigby. “The opportunity was to draw these out more clearly and confidently. “
EDIT’s new identity work for English National Ballet
The new identity built around the idea of “opening up the possibilities of ballet” which, Leigh says, informed every aspect of the work.
For Karen Hughes, co-founder and creative director of EDIT, the first task was to clarify whether the client needed, “an evolution or a revolution, a refresh or a rebrand.”
They tested three concepts with audiences and found there were “lots of positives” with the existing brand. The challenges came around the brand system.
“It was quite limited in terms of flexibility and how it could adapt,” Hughes says. Ironically for a ballet brand, “It didn’t have that stretch.”
However the testing phase also confirmed there was room to make the brand more resonant. “It felt modern, but it perhaps didn’t connect emotionally with people,” Hughes says.
The solution was to take the previous mark – which has been likened to the pointe shoes worn by ballerinas, or a set of quotation marks – and use it more confidently. In the past it was often placed “as a logo in the corner” which obscured the ENB’s own brand, or made it look like a sponsor.
“We wanted to create a symbol that could go front and centre,” Hughes says.
The EDIT team also added a new wordmark, in Google Fonts’ Bricolage Grotesque, and the same type was chosen for the copy, due to its “fluid elements.”
This desire to mimic the dynamism of the artform also drove a renewed focus on the brand’s motion design. “It felt quite static in its previous form, so there was so much potential with the motion to add more energy,” Hughes says.
Leigh says this was a key part of the project. “If you look at the way the brand mark comes to life, it’s animated and integrated across everything we’re doing.”
The team also wanted to bring more emotion into the identity. That influenced the motion design, the art direction and photography, and even the colour palette, where different shades represent different feelings, and gradients are used to show how emotions bleed into each other.
“The key idea was to ‘feel more with English National Ballet’,” Leigh explains. “That might be passion, happiness, anger, sadness – whatever it is, you’re free to feel it with us.”
EDIT’s new identity work for English National Ballet
EDIT also developed a new verbal identity, which Leigh says had been under-used in the brand’s previous incarnation. The new tone of voice leans into this sense of emotion, and presents ballet as something for everybody.
“Ballet is tricky because there can be a lot of language barriers,” Hughes says. “If you don’t feel like you understand things enough, you might feel like you don’t belong there.
“So it’s not about dumbing things down, because it’s obviously very technical and professional. But we could make it more inviting for people, and remove some of those barriers that unnecessarily get in the way.”
The other balancing act was to ensure the new branding works alongside a wide variety of shows, community programmes, and other activity, all of which may have their own personalities.
“I think the challenge for performing arts generally is the tension between product and brand,” Leigh says. “You have a broad range of product, and it changes quite quickly. What you really want to do is build the relationship with the brand, to establish who we are with audiences.”
She points out that a classic production of Swan Lake evokes different feelings from a cutting-edge premier from a new choreographer, but the ENB brand needs to work across the board.
“We need to have a strong sense of identity over and above the performance itself,” she says.
“You will see the logo often sits right in the middle of the posters, which is very unusual,” Hughes adds. “But I think it’s a signal for people to have a relationship with the organisation itself, and not just a particular show.”
The new website was created by London-based agency HdK, which like EDIT and Boardroom Consulting specialises in working with cultural institutions. Leigh says the site’s more user-friendly design reflects the broader ambitions of the brand refresh.
And she says, the ENB is excited to see where they can take the new identity.
“The reaction has been really encouraging, but I think we’re just at the start,” she says. “We have a system that can be flexed in lots of different ways, and we’re still working out exactly what that might look like going forward.”
EDIT’s new identity work for English National Ballet
EDIT’s new identity work for English National Ballet