Tonic Arts is a vibrant, award-winning programme that delivers a diverse, multi-arts programme of events, exhibitions, commissioned artworks, artist residencies and art collection curation that improves patient experience and the hospital environment.

The brief: to create an accessible arts brand which enhanced people’s experience of being in hospital - which successfully showcased the high quality artistic commissions whilst remaining free of the elitism or humourlessness which can be prevalent in the contemporary art world. We wanted to break through the solemnity that surrounds the presentation of fine art, instead making it feel widely accessible.

We developed a ‘droplet’ symbol which formed the central component of the visual identity. This was teamed with the use of bright colour and bold, accessible type. From this starting point the identity can flex to suit the variation in tone needed across different healthcare environments, from therapeutic colour blends to energetic type treatment and staccato animation styles.

Accessibility was obviously a key concern within a healthcare environment. We were also aware that taking an overly dogmatic approach to accessibility can often come at the expense of a brands personality and ability to communicate in a distinctive way. To balance this the decision was made early to fix the use of type to a bold, black san serif on all applications, this allowed us to use bright colour backgrounds free of concern over colour contrast and legibility.

People can feel dehumanised in a hospital, becoming only a patient, or a worker, or a visitor. Tonic Arts aims to provide the kind of experiences that brings people back to themselves. This work is more important now than ever and we’re delighted to have worked with them to create a brand identity that can develop and grow with the organisation.