Northbound.

Northbound is a self-initiated campaign system for a fictional festival of independent music. Festivals usually ask a poster to do everything. I designed a system where one compositional rule does the work across every format.

A diagonal field of uneven bars is interrupted by a single circular cut-out. The cut-out carries the artist, the date or nothing at all.

Build a recognisable campaign language that works from a 3-metre poster down to a story tile, and that a small team can produce quickly under deadline.

Northbound is about moving in one direction. The diagonal field creates motion; the cut-out creates a stage. Type stays reduced to two weights so the image can carry the energy.

The stripe field was tested at 1:8 scale, then rebuilt as a flexible grid with three intensity levels — quiet, standard and loud. Each level corresponds to a communication job: lineup, programme, announcement.

A poster family across three formats, a story template set, a lineup grid, and a compact production guide.