My MA Major Project is “Nottingham: City of Barbarians”, a new tourism identity for inner-city attractions and events built around real historic quotes about Nottingham’s history for protest and rebellion against authority, aiming to address current issues with the existing visual identity raised by the Nottingham public. Namely, local attractions have been criticised for their high cost-of-entry which outprices local residents and families, and a generally bland presentation which is failing to appeal to a younger audience.
You might think of Nottingham as the city of Robin Hood, but it’s also a city of secret Luddite Kings, a castle-sacking citizenry, and great ‘Cheese Riots’ – I was shocked to learn that even fellow students who were born and raised in Nottingham knew next-to-nothing about many of these hilarious and empowering tales of working-class rebellion.
The redesign draws it’s insulting titles and copywriting directly from historical accounts about Nottingham’s rebellious population throughout the eighteenth-through-twenty-first centuries, which saw genuine (if audiacious and eccentric) insults such as “the dregs of society”, “Low and Bad Characters” and “Barbarians [making sacrifices] to the demon of anarchy and crime” bandied at hard-done-by Nottingham citizens.
The new brand is aimed at a younger audience: teens, young adults, and family groups - and looks to address a perceived lack of dramatism in the presentation of a city with a very dramatic and fascinating history. The focus is on engaging and interactive storytelling: several locations around the city have been selected to accompany true stories from Nottingham’s past, each of which can be scanned using AR to recognise the landmark and deliver an article of sorts which tells the shocking story and links to other resources for learning more. The landmarks themselves can be found on the brand website, in a map of available locations - creating a ‘treasure hunt’ for local residents to plan a day out to discover each story.
Additionally, the advertising campaign for the project pairs up scandalous true titles given to Nottingham residents of the past with those of the present, contrasting a friendly-looking cast of people young and old with their apparent reputations as people of Nottingham. To get involved, groups of families and friends can submit photos of themselves to be featured on street signs and digital ads in a campaign that takes pride in it’s residents above all else.
For a less-involved way to engage with the campaign, a series of AR Filters for social media sites Instagram and Facebook have been launched, which frame selfie-takers like wanted posters, complete with wildly-eccentric and genuinely historical monikers from which there are many to choose.
In truth, the city is a proud and diverse community with a rich and productive culture, one which should take pride in these historic comments; and by extension, pride in it’s scandalous, incendiary, and sometimes ridiculous history. City of Barbarians has for me been a capstone project, bookending four years of study in a city I’ve really come to love, and I hope that the admiration I have for this place and its people is visible in this final project.
You might think of Nottingham as the city of Robin Hood, but it’s also a city of secret Luddite Kings, a castle-sacking citizenry, and great ‘Cheese Riots’ – I was shocked to learn that even fellow students who were born and raised in Nottingham knew next-to-nothing about many of these hilarious and empowering tales of working-class rebellion.
The redesign draws it’s insulting titles and copywriting directly from historical accounts about Nottingham’s rebellious population throughout the eighteenth-through-twenty-first centuries, which saw genuine (if audiacious and eccentric) insults such as “the dregs of society”, “Low and Bad Characters” and “Barbarians [making sacrifices] to the demon of anarchy and crime” bandied at hard-done-by Nottingham citizens.
The new brand is aimed at a younger audience: teens, young adults, and family groups - and looks to address a perceived lack of dramatism in the presentation of a city with a very dramatic and fascinating history. The focus is on engaging and interactive storytelling: several locations around the city have been selected to accompany true stories from Nottingham’s past, each of which can be scanned using AR to recognise the landmark and deliver an article of sorts which tells the shocking story and links to other resources for learning more. The landmarks themselves can be found on the brand website, in a map of available locations - creating a ‘treasure hunt’ for local residents to plan a day out to discover each story.
Additionally, the advertising campaign for the project pairs up scandalous true titles given to Nottingham residents of the past with those of the present, contrasting a friendly-looking cast of people young and old with their apparent reputations as people of Nottingham. To get involved, groups of families and friends can submit photos of themselves to be featured on street signs and digital ads in a campaign that takes pride in it’s residents above all else.
For a less-involved way to engage with the campaign, a series of AR Filters for social media sites Instagram and Facebook have been launched, which frame selfie-takers like wanted posters, complete with wildly-eccentric and genuinely historical monikers from which there are many to choose.
In truth, the city is a proud and diverse community with a rich and productive culture, one which should take pride in these historic comments; and by extension, pride in it’s scandalous, incendiary, and sometimes ridiculous history. City of Barbarians has for me been a capstone project, bookending four years of study in a city I’ve really come to love, and I hope that the admiration I have for this place and its people is visible in this final project.
Nottingham: City of Barbarians
Masters Project
Self-Directed Brief
Nottingham Trent University, 2023
tsjdonnelly@gmail.com
︎ @topographicdesign
︎ Travis Donnelly
he/him/his