Dublin City Council Culture Company, Company Strategy 2025-2030

An ambitious brief, our task was to create a unique solution to encapsulate the open, inclusive soul of the Dublin City Council Culture Company Strategy 2025-2030, communicating the vision, mission and strategic objectives for the next five years, in a memorable, engaging manner. 

The true embodiment of inclusion in culture, the Dublin City Council Culture Company works tirelessly towards ‘a Dublin where everyone has access to culture to feel connected to their place and the people around them’, ‘dedicated to building sustainable impacts through accessible and engaging cultural experiences’, ‘encouraging everyone to be involved’, they ‘collaborate with artists, communities and organisations’, to ‘ensure programmes are meaningful and accessible to all’.

As such, we felt it imperative to utilise the company vision, mission and values, briefly summarised above, as the catalyst for concept and creative development, communicating the inclusive heart of the strategy, the focus on accessible, authentic, human interactions & interplay.

As the company’s core communication mechanism, a ‘working strategy’, distributed at a local, national and international level, it was imperative our proposed solution connect with a vast and incredibly diverse audience, challenging perceptions and fostering engagement. From the outset, our aim was to develop a concept that was utterly unique for the area of ‘council reports and strategy documentation’, inclusive, engaging and memorable across all audience demographics, routed in authentic experiences, interactions and the joy of positive participation, showcasing interplay and the experience led soul of the strategy content.

Working with the team in Dublin City Council across content and flow, we developed an innovative collection of tactile, interactive applications, a physical strategy pack rooted in sustainable excellence, incorporating housing unit, 40pg thread sewn thermochromic publication and set of off-cut bookmarks, plus ancillary microsite, socials, etc., furthering the concept and communications across digital, vastly increasing reach whilst retaining our sustainability goals.

A simple concept, all aspects of design are set in an ‘apparent’ black and white aesthetic… as the reader holds, interacts and engages with the content, through the thermochromic response, their fingerprints begin to subtly reveal themselves, communicating the opportunity to ‘make your mark on the cultural fabric of the city’, furthermore, as the reader continues, the more the strategy is held, read, used, engaged / worked with, the more creativity is revealed, as the monochrome ‘top’ designs disappear further, showcasing a series of unique, full colour artworks underneath, illustrating the inclusive, accessible, experience led soul of the strategy, the effects of which are furthered across digital applications, with touch gestures, cursor interactions, etc.

With the concept and approach a closely guarded secret, known only to us and four client side, on launch, an organic sense of surprise and delight spread rapidly throughout the venue, as 300+ attendees received and interacted with their strategies, a fantastic sense of play developed, prompting discussion, experimentation and joyful interactions. 

A truly wonderful project to collaborate on, we’re incredibly grateful to the Dublin City Council Culture Company for the opportunity, for their unwavering trust and support throughout.