For the past two years, Espoo City Theatre has worked on its branding based on a strategy created in 2019 and updated in 2022. The new brand emerges from a core tenet of the strategy: “&& is a theatre, but it is also more than a theatre; it will evolve into a platform for new thinking, a hot meeting point for people, ideas, societal phenomena, and the arts. It is a shared spiritual home of people of various ages, societal backgrounds, and geographic origins.”
The theatre’s new brand strategy was collaboratively created by the following key players: from the theatre, director Erik Söderblom and Karoliina Kiviluoto, sales and marketing manager; from Open Flower, creative strategist Anna Moilanen; from TBWA, creative designer Mikael Kivelä. Graphic designer Teemu Junkkaala of gstj executed the visual look, and the website was designed and created by Great Apes.
Espoo City Theatre = Espoo Theatre = Et = &&
“Espoo Theatre’s key values are inclusiveness and diversity in the ways in which we collaborate, we open our doors to visiting groups and fresh experiments. As the International Theatre of Finland, we are the knot that ties together multiple strands. The ampersand, or &&, symbolises connections between things and ideas, and the bringing together of performers, audiences, and cultures. & is always with someone. Naturally 6&, that is et, also stands for Espoo Theatre. It is a logo that in an excellent way conjoins the theatre’s name, its values, and its aims.” – Erik Söderblom
“We wanted to create something surprising, interesting, and distinctive. Our gaze is forward-looking, and, of course, also fixed on the new theatre building. Not unlike performing arts, our new visual identity challenges convention, and the business-as-usual way of doing and viewing things. && is constantly on the move, it’s alive, it flows, and takes many shapes, just as theatre does. At the same time, the symbol is like a Rorschach test eliciting a preconscious response from the viewer.” – Karoliina Kiviluoto
With its fresh brand, && is even more open, current, and brave. The theatre’s vision crystallises, and the through line to new theatre venue becomes clearer.
