“Wonderful humans, and very good at what they do. Let them help you make your business better.”
"They were innovative in their approach and really got us thinking about who we are at the core.”
"What a thoughtful and joyful experience. I want to start a new business and do it again."
You?
A festival and event branding agency from Melbourne for arts, film and music festivals and the companies behind them.
A festival has one weekend to be known and a hundred others to be compared with. The brand is what sells it before anyone has been.
An audience buys a festival on faith: the name, the poster and the campaign are the whole product until the gates open. For the inaugural DRIFT on the Mornington Peninsula, the brand had to say what a new arts festival was for before a single artist had played. It did, from wheatpaste posters to a train station screen to the website.
Festival Brand Audit & Strategy
New festival or tenth edition, we map the events your audience chooses between, read how last year’s audience saw you, and find the idea the festival can own. DRIFT’s was reigniting creativity on the Peninsula, and it gave a first-year festival its reason to exist.
- Competitor and category mapping
- Positioning and festival narrative
- Audience definition: who it is for
- Naming for a new festival or program
What does the brand audit cover?
How your audience see you against your competitors, how the brand reads from the social post to the site signage, and what your team says you stand for. Two weeks, one working session, and a clear call: leave it, refresh it or rebuild it.
Identity, Type & Motion
A system the festival runs every year: logo, type, colour, motion and voice, built to carry a different line-up and a different poster each time. For Gather Round, an events company, we drew a custom typeface, Gather Sans, and a set of icons for the food truck, the tipis and the drinks. DRIFT’s line-up was set in animated type for screens and social.
- Logo, typography and colour
- Custom type and lettering
- Motion for screens, social and stage
- Guidelines and templates for next year
Why a brand system rather than a poster?
A poster is one year. A system holds the name steady while the line-up and the artwork change, so the audience recognises the festival before they read it.
Campaigns, Posters & Site Signage
The campaign across outdoor, print and social, the posters and wheatpastes, the signage and wayfinding on the ground. DRIFT ran across a billboard, a train station poster, outdoor scrims and a wordmark on a big screen in a dark venue.
- Campaigns across outdoor, print and social
- Posters, wheatpastes and billboards
- Site signage, wayfinding and stage dressing
- Tees, caps and totes
Can you run the campaign as well as design it?
Yes. We ran DRIFT’s social advertising, search ads and photography alongside the brand. Where you have a marketing team, we hand over the system and the templates.
Websites, Ticketing & Social
A festival website has to sell tickets, carry the program and survive announcement day. We design and build in Webflow, connect ticketing, and set up the social templates and the paid campaigns that fill it. We are a Webflow Premium Partner and Google Ads Partners.
- Webflow website design and development
- Ticketing and program integration
- Social templates and announcement assets
- Search, social advertising and Google Ads
Do you build the website too?
Yes. The team that sets the strategy builds the site, so nothing is lost in a handover.
A clear process for a festival brand that sells next year’s tickets too.
Audit & Diagnose
Your competitors, last year’s audience, and the honest call: leave, refresh or rebuild.
Position & Strategise
The idea the festival owns and the story that holds it, agreed with the directors.
Design the System
Identity, type, motion and templates, built to carry next year’s line-up.
Build & Roll Out
Campaign, posters, website, ticketing, site signage. The crew meet the brand before the audience does.
Steward
We stay on for the next announcement, the next edition and the sister event.
Starting prices, + GST, scoped to the event and what the brand has to cover.
- Brand Audit (two weeks): competitor map, perception read, positioning options, a recommendation with a price for each path. The audit fee comes off the strategy fee if you go on.
- Brand Strategy (from AUD 5,000 + GST): positioning, purpose, audience mapping and brand narrative.
- Brand Identity Design (from AUD 10,000 + GST): the visual and verbal system on a strategic foundation, with guidelines.
- Full Brand: strategy and identity end to end, for a business repositioning for growth or a group bringing several names under one.
Campaign production, site signage and merch are scoped from the start. Get in touch to find out where yours lands.
It helps you answer three questions and apply the answers everywhere.
- Who are we? The idea the business stands for.
- What makes us different? The position that separates you from the events your audience chooses between.
- How do we say it? The identity and system that carry it, from the first announcement to the wristband.
In practice: brand strategy, identity, a campaign, a website and the templates that make next year easier. Here is how our brand strategy works.
Yes. That was DRIFT. A new festival needs a sharper idea than an established one, because the idea is all there is to buy.
Most full projects run 8 to 16 weeks from kick-off to final delivery.
- Weeks 1–3, Discovery and Research: stakeholder interviews and workshops, market and competitor analysis, audience research.
- Weeks 4–6, Strategy: positioning and differentiation, messaging framework and brand platform.
- Weeks 7–10, Identity Design: logo and visual identity, design system, application across touchpoints.
- Weeks 11–14, Refinement and Guidelines: refinement, brand guidelines and toolkit, templates.
- Weeks 15–16, Handover and Support: final delivery, team training and launch planning.
Festivals run to dates, so we plan backwards from the first announcement and the on-sale date.
It depends on your goals and the state of the brand. You likely need a full rebrand if:
- your positioning no longer reflects who you are or where you are going
- you have outgrown your original market or changed what you sell
- the brand creates confusion or fails to differentiate
- the visual identity looks dated next to the businesses you compete with
- the people who run the business struggle to explain what makes it different
You likely need a brand refresh if:
- the core positioning is strong but the visuals look tired
- you are evolving, not changing direction
- the guidelines lack consistency or do not scale
- the messaging needs tightening, not rethinking
Not sure? That is what the audit is for. It tells you which of these you are, and what each path would cost.
Yes. Our studio is in Mornington and we work across Melbourne and nationally, in person or online. Most festivals are not in a capital city.
"What an incredibly thoughtful and joyful experience with ONETOO. I want to start a new business just to enjoy the brand process with the ONETOO team again."
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