Cardiff Design Festival

Brief

In order to encourage tourism to rural Bridgend, Bridgend County Borough Council set out to tell stories of the area, incorporating events and points of interest from within the region to inform associated walking trails. Areas to be highlighted included the Llynfi, Garw and Ogmore Valleys as well as an area south of the M4, which we identified as Kenfig. In addition to bringing families to these areas to explore, the stories, aimed at 6-11 year olds needed to act as a stand-alone reading resource that children and their parents could enjoy together. A name and brand identity was required to promote the stories and walks to the target audience and fit in with the wider Bridgend Tourism Strategy.

Result

The project has only recently finished and a launch event is to be arranged by the Reach team at Bridgend County Borough Council involving local school children reading the stories, walking the trails and taking part in the activities. The story written for the Llynfi area has already been used at the opening of The Cardiff Story by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. The story, based on the custom of the Mari Lwyd, was read by a local storyteller while children got to see the illustrations from the story and a real Mari Lwyd horse. Ieuan Sherwood of Bridgend Council says 'We are delighted with the collection of stories. They have been wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated and thanks to their experience in publishing, Stills were a valuable member of the project team. We can't wait to launch Tales & Trails to the public.'

Solution

One story for each of the four areas was written in English and Welsh and to reflect the walking trails developed as part of the project, the story collections were named ‘Tales & Trails’ and ‘Dere am Dro’ respectively. A wise old owl was chosen as a visual identity for the stories which allowed us to explore different places and times in Bridgend’s history. There are strong personalities within the stories and the whole family unit is depicted to ensure a broad appeal. The illustrations suggest rather than illustrate so the reader can impose their own idea of what the characters may look like. Activities that link with points of interest along the trails both inform and engage families. Further online resources include downloadable audio versions of the stories that we created and additional activities that local schools can use as educational material.