In 2022, I celebrated 10 years since I graduated college and entered the world of work as a full-time creative. Scary stuff. On looking back and taking stock this year, I realised that there are some clients who have been with me over multiple years. Because I am primarily a logo designer this isn’t my norm. I am there at the beginning to get them started and then we part ways. But after reviewing my client list, there are some that kept popping up so this Client Corner Feature is to focus on each one of these clients (and be nostalgic and overshare!).
First up is The Lydians.
As a child, my mother took me to the Lydians Christmas concert every, single year. Actually, we went to anything The Lydians produced once we could. My mother worked for an oil & gas company and was an external comms officer who used her powers for good by ensuring creative projects got funded. As you can guess, she, through her profession, sponsored The Lydians all those years we went to those concerts. And this is my earliest memory of them, before becoming a designer was even a thought. My favourite part of a Lydians’ Christmas concert is the end, not because it’s over, but because a Lydians’ Christmas concert always ends with Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus…accompanied by live tassa! It is one of my absolute favourite things of all time.
Fast forward to 2017 when the Communications Officer of The Lydians (at the time), Janine Charles-Farray (who also happened to be my favourite singer!) reached out for some assistance with producing artwork for the same annual Christmas concert I religiously attended. “Finally!” I thought. They were having some trouble getting the artwork done in a timely manner that year and called me for some assistance.
2017 | Hold Out Your Light
I remember being so nervous. I put all this pressure on myself about this great client, my dream client and delivering a great product. It was so surreal seeing my work when I attended the concert that year. Janine and I worked together to ensure this we got this just right. She was one of the first creative clients I had who gave specific creation direction and requests. I learnt so much and luckily, they were satisfied because the following year, we did it again.
2018 | The Gift
I should probably mention all of the various deliverables for the project and the process. So what goes into creating the visuals for a show: it all begins with a theme. Each year most annual events pick a theme, The Lydians was no different. They would pick a name for the concert each year and this will dictate what music they select to perform. They tend to stay away from the cliché Christmas themes, and being a choir rooted in the Anglican faith, there are almost always religious undertones.
So first, they give me the theme/title for the year. They share a creative brief which describes why they chose the theme and what is the overall message they are trying to share with their audience. This is extremely helpful for me because it helps me to create something that matches that message visually. A peeve of mine is when there is inconsistency in messaging and the visuals do not match the rest of the theme for an event. I see it all the time. Anyway, I digress. Once I get the creative brief, I then create 2-3 options of the title and what it would look like on a flyer. The client provides feedback, maybe we make a few edits to the chosen design and then I roll out all of the needed deliverables. These include: a main flyer, sized for press, website, and various social media platforms, as well as the tickets for the show, any merchandise that will be on sale such as t-shirts and more recently masks, signage (in this case, pennants), and the programme for the show. The visual elements are also shared with the video editor for consistency and with the projectionist for on stage visuals.
2019 | Deo Gratias
2019 was the last year that Janine and I worked together on the Lydians Christmas concert. The underlying theme was muses and representing past, present and looking toward the future, hence the 3 faces. 2019 also happened to be the 40th anniversary of the choir, their ruby year, and on top of the usual artwork requests was the ask for an anniversary logo.
As we all know, 2020 brought a global pandemic and the event industry as we know it was basically over. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from the Lydians’ General Manager, Garnet Allen, to produce artwork again.
2021 | Arise, Shine!
As the name suggested, Arise, Shine! was to mark that coming out of the darkness we as humans felt for the 2 years of lockdown. This was also the beginning of the Lydians securing sponsorship by FCB and the introduction of their dual logo use on designs.
2022 | Season of Steel
For the first time, I got to work on something specifically for Lydian Steel and outside of the Christmas season. The Lydian Steel also celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2022 which meant, another anniversary logo!
2022 | Angels Bending Near The Earth
The person who got me started on this 5 year journey with the Lydians unfortunately passed away in the second half of 2022. The 2022 Christmas concert was dedicated to all the angels who left us as well as the ones still with us and while this was the longest title we’ve worked with to date (5 words long!) it felt like a nice send off and thank you to someone very special to us in the creative community.
Rest in Peace, Janine. And thank you.
If you’ve made it to the end, thank you for reading! Feel free to comment and ask questions about anything related to this post and look out for the next 3 Client Corner features.
Words by Ayrïd Chandler 