Brief Explanation

Shakespeare. Multilingual. Indian. The design of all communication for the festival needed to reflect these three attributes. Featuring 32 shows across 16 days in 8 different languages, all the information also needed to be extremely clear at first glance. Ticket buyers, sellers and collectors needed to be able to tell a day show from a night show and a film screening from a sonnet recital. All production needed to work within a very tight budget.

The Brief

Ranga Shankara is one of India’s most prestigious theatres and their annual theatre festival is a much-awaited event, getting a lot of local and global attention. The theme for 2012 was ‘Local interpretations of Shakespeare’. The festival mirrored plays performed at The Globe the same year. The fact that the plays would be performed in 4 Indian and 4 international languages made this event unique. We needed to make this ‘local’ aspect shine through the design and communication. How can we put our own special spin on this so everyone knows it’s not just another Shakespeare festival?

How the final design was conceived

We found our solution in an ancient Indian theatre tradition – shadow leather puppetry from Andhra Pradesh, a South Indian state – where coloured puppets made of goatskin are manipulated against a white screen. We designed Shakespeare’s familiar figure using this visual inspiration and made it central to all collateral and merchandise. We balanced this with ethnic colours and woodcut typography drawn from vintage theatre posters from the West. Scripts from different languages were displayed prominently and a colour coding system helped keep the communication clear. The result? Shakespeare, multilingual, Indian – and intriguing!

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

We were able to create a memorable experience for theatre enthusiasts. “The design flowed beautifully and seamlessly across all collateral. The campaign was effective, and universally from Bangalore to Stratford-upon-Avon, to the teams at The Globe, everybody thought it was a great idea! — Gayathri Krishna, Festival Director (Ranga Shankara)