Its been a long time coming since we won the tender to design the new branding for Redcar Council’s Creative Hub, but we are delighted to announce the new logo has been approved and will be in circulation soon so keep watching this space! As we’ve been keeping the ongoing development of the brand top secret we haven’t had the opportunity to blog about the whole process and the work we have carried out in relation to the various workshops we delivered, the meetings with the Council, Architects, Consultants all involved with bringing this fantastic new creative hub to Redcar. The multi-million pound regeneration of Redcar, Cleveland in the North East of England encompasses a hive of redevelopment work which is currently visible as you enter Redcar itself.

Two highly prominent new builds include the ‘Vertical’ Pier, a dynamic, tower like structure which will form an iconic entrance to the esplanade itself, the other new build is the Creative Hub, a landmark building that will be home to the region’s growing creative community. It’s this building’s branding that we have created and that we will showcase soon. (A sneak peak can be seen here)

The building itself is sure to cause both local and regional debate, especially as it will stem from the demolition of one of Redcar’s most famous buildings the Palace Theatre or Palace of Varieties, a historic building dating back to 1913. The old building had seen several guises such as the aforementioned theatre, a cinema, a social club, a bingo hall and at its closure in the 80′s a video and amusement arcade. Locally the building has been synonymous with being a place where people congregate and have fun, engage and converse, this helped shape our overall brand strategy when developing the new logo for its intended purpose as a place for artists, creatives and designers to work and share ideas and energy and also to become a place the region can be proud of, to become a showcase building. The local influence of the previous historical values the old building had were prevalent in our shaping of the brand, yet we still had to ensure the logo would appeal to its intended market, so the name we proposed “Palace Hub” was adopted by the Council and is what the new building will be known as. Soon the logo itself will be in circulation and adorned on the wonderful new building designed by Tim Bailey’s Xsite Architecture, designers of Boho One in Middlesbrough.

We will be posting further blog posts about more of the history of the old building plus a photo library of the old buildings demolition stages soon, together with more thoughts and images of the new branding and if you are passing Redcar have a pop down to the esplanade and see for yourself as the new building work is gathering speed with a planned completion date for September 2012. If you are an artist, creative, designer, digital expert, scupltor or involved with anything creative and are interested in finding out more about the Palace Hub and how it can help your business then contact Charlotte Allen, Creative Industries Adviser at Redcar Council on 01642 495733 or search @redcarcreatives