Steve Kirkpatrick worked closely with Theatre Director Ellie Jay Stevens and DG Arts to create a new brand identity for “Tam: A New Scottish Musical”.

Ellie was looking for a brand identity to represent her new Musical, which is based on the Robert Burns poem Tam O’ Shanter but has a contemporary take, concentrating on the feminine characters.

I’d worked with Ellie on some previous projects and knew she was very visually literate, which came in extremely handy in this project. I followed my usual approach of providing research on the project along with some ‘sketch’ approaches. Some of the ideas were digitally developed, but the preferred design was most definitely in ‘doodle’ form, which I had to expand on verbally: “A feminine tree base, with branches forming into a hand reaches out to grab ‘Tam’ whilst riding over the iconic bridge in the poem. A possible introduction of a moon to create a silhouette with lettering which has some historical context with the addition of contemporary flourishes”. Some ideas are best presented in their raw form, allowing the vision of the brand identity room to be developed by designer and client together.

Recreating the elements of the identity illustration was fairly demanding to get the right mood and subtleness of being ‘eerie, dark, empowering and mystical’. There were several iterations, changing positions, emphasis, but as a team we created the final identity. 

The supportive graphics was realised from creating a list of iconic references from the Tam O’ Shanter poem (candle, tankard, key, bat…) which I collaged together using a background of textured paper and watercolour splash, to create a backdrop of layered historical connection.

The final part of the brand identity was to create a simple brand guidelines document and several templates which Ellie can use across social media to promote her Musical.

I wish Ellie and DG Arts all the best in the development of this fantastic production, due to premier in May 2027.

Instagram templates below

Early workings below, from initial concept doodle (bottom left) to early design versions, before the brand identity was fully developed (above).