Overview

SPARK! are Chelmsford’s Young Cultural Changemakers. Formed in 2022 through the Local Cultural Education Partnership (LCEP), this group of 13-25 year olds lead cultural projects across Chelmsford, as part of the Young Cultural Changemakers Programme 2025 to 2027.

Over the next eighteen months, SPARK! will deliver four high-impact projects designed to foster creative skills development, commission opportunities for creative professionals and produce a transferable model of best practice for other towns and cities across Essex and the UK.

These projects include Collecting Our Future, with the Museum of Chelmsford, Concrete Canvas Reimagined with Chelmsford For You, Chelmsford Science Festival: Gaming Fringe with ARU, and Wrap-around support, providing mentoring, learning and advisory opportunities for young people.

At the point of commission, the SPARK! brand was not fully formed, and needed to be developed further in order to give SPARK! a stronger voice in the community, and help them recruit new SPARK! members and deliver on their long-term projects in the City.  

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Objectives

The SPARK! brand development had to meet the following objectives:

• Appeal across the full youth spectrum from 13-year-olds taking their first creative steps to 25-year-olds building careers, with an energy that feels inclusive, current and real.
  
• Feel like a movement worth joining, helping SPARK! recruit and grow its membership to around 30 young changemakers.
  
• Hold credibility with the city’s organisations and business leaders, projecting a polished image that feels capable and confident, while keeping a youthful spirit.
  
• Open doors to collaboration, making it easier for more organisations to engage with and invest in youth-led creativity.
  
• Stand the test of time, to give the brand longevity beyond its current programme.

Inclusive Process:

It was important to involve the SPARK! Members in the branding process, so they could take some ownership of the creative direction, so we facilitated two face to face workshops and feedback sessions with members. During these sessions, we put questions to the group, such as:
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• What does SPARK! mean to you?
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• What does the new brand need to achieve?
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• Who is a typical SPARK! Member?
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• How would you describe the SPARK! group to someone who hasn't heard of it before?

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During the first group sessions, we reviewed the existing brand development and looked at established brands to see what kinds of logos and visual identities resonated with the group. It was important to gather this initial feedback from the SPARK! members from the outset, as we needed to develop a brand that not only appealed to their demographic, but also to the people and organisations they would engage with it in the months and years to come.

We developed two concepts based on our initial meetings and presented them in person, and allowed the group to consider and deliver feedback in a break-out session, and helped the group understand the difference between helpful feedback and vague feedback so we could build upon the branding with clear direction and intention.

After the initial presentation of the branding concepts, we collated and summarised the group's feedback and refined the branding concepts further.

Results

The new SPARK! brand identity gives the group a cohesive and striking visual presence that combines youthful energy as well as credibility, supported by brand guidelines that will ensure consistency across social media, events and brand partnerships.

The brand identity will empower SPARK! to communicate with confidence, from recruitment campaigns to public events, and helps the group be instantly recognisable as Chelmsford’s Young Cultural Changemakers.

Crucially, the new brand bridges the gap between youth culture and civic engagement. It allows SPARK! to speak the language of both audiences: engaging peers with energy and authenticity, while building trust and credibility with city leaders, cultural organisations and funders.

The brandmark has been designed to sit comfortably within the wider brand universe of Ignite and Culture Chelmsford, and is supplied with a set of brand guidelines and numerous Canva templates to steer their creative work forward.

As a result, SPARK! now has a clear visual identity that supports its mission to empower young people to lead cultural change, attract new members, and build lasting partnerships that will strengthen Chelmsford’s creative future.

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This project was done in collaboration with the fantastic Mr. Nick Herne