VISUAL IDENTITY
DIGITAL CASE FILES
POSTER DESIGN
SOCIAL MEDIA DESIGN
CONTENT CREATION
The Brief
Big Mini is a community-led creative project by Soft Touch Arts designed to unite young people with major arts organisations across Leicester. The project gave young creatives a platform to explore their personal styles and voices — ranging from clay anxiety dragons to joyful, nature-inspired illustrations — and display their immersive artwork across prominent public venues like the Curve Theatre, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, and Phoenix.
The challenge lay in the execution: Soft Touch Arts needed a cohesive marketing strategy and visual identity that could seamlessly bridge the gap between a physical, high-street trail and a thriving digital space. The goal was to build a bold, playful brand system that celebrated community-generated art, amplified the voices of the young artists, and drove physical foot traffic across multiple city-centre locations.
The Process
To capture the raw, imaginative energy of the youth-led project without losing professional structure, I developed an identity rooted in high-contrast playfulness and intentional functionality, as seen above.
✱ A Youthful, Grounded Palette: I established a vibrant colour palette dominated by bright, punchy greens and warm yellows, balanced by deep, organic tones like berry and cream. This kept the brand feeling energetic, fresh, and deeply connected to a youthful audience without leaning on childish clichés.
✱ Expressive, Tactile Typography: I paired bold, blocky, and hand drawn headings with clean, highly legible sans-serif typefaces like DM Sans. This match gave the brand a playful, "experimental poster" look while ensuring all critical location details and artist quotes remained fully accessible to the public.
✱ Human-Centric Digital "Case Files": Rather than just posting pictures of the final art, I went behind the scenes. I interviewed the young artists to uncover the real stories behind their creations. I then structured these into engaging digital "case files" for the website, giving the community an intimate look into the artists' inspirations.
✱ Seamless Trail Infrastructure: To transform the physical trail into a digestible digital experience, I curated interactive digital maps and highly structured social media grids. This gave locals a clear, frictionless guide to navigating the multi-venue trail across the city.
The Outcome
By turning a high-street arts trail into an integrated physical and digital event, the Big Mini project successfully captured the city's attention. The bold visual identity across social platforms built an immediate buzz, driving foot traffic to Soft Touch Arts, LCB Depot, and the other participating venues.
More importantly, the project delivered on its core mission: impact. By showcasing the young artists' personal stories alongside their work, the campaign gave these creators a profound sense of visibility, validation, and real-world accomplishment as they saw their ideas celebrated across the center of Leicester.
