Architecture with Purpose

Voodoo DesignWorks delivers characterful branding to a notable Bristol landmark with a little help from Metamark materials…

Bristol North Baths, as might be inferred from the name, was once home to a swimming pool serving the good people of North Bristol. The building itself is Grade II listed reflecting its importance and its Edwardian influences. It didn’t open as a pool when the last brick was laid after construction began in 1915 though, it was instead home to a facility making aircraft wings. Bristol had to wait a while, and it opened as a pool in 1922.

The new pool was unheated, and few customers wanted to take the waters in winter. Problem solved. During winter, the pool had a deck laid over it, and the ‘Baths became a dance hall. The ‘Baths has also seen service as a Police Station, and it raised its head in an episode of Only Fools and Horses.

Bristol North Baths today, still answers to the name but it now houses some of Bristol’s most attractive and desirable office space. Voodoo DesignWorks was consulted and engaged to provide an enhance identity for the development and signage. Voodoo had to be minded that they were being asked to interfere with a listed local treasure and saw the job in terms of obligation toward a business needing to promote itself and reflecting and respecting local heritage.

While Voodoo DesignWorks plays centre-stage in the role of a signmaker, the company is also a designer of no small repute. They went right back to DNA-level brand development before even venturing a sign-design for BNB. The team designed and produced a detailed brand-bible that re-tasked elements of BNB prior identity. The impression the new primary logo makes is immediate, it’s legible, and it registers as its own man in terms of originality. The colourways really sing and the whole work unites to present a cohesive, well managed brand that’s used like the valuable asset Voodoo made it.

Voodoo’s brand bible informed all its works from that point. Among the signage is a very impressive sign structure that’s now out front and is visible from lots of high-traffic vantage points up and down the busy A38. The sign is entirely original, and fabricated from the raw elements it comprises. Its cube-like proportions counterpoint the architecture that’s its host while giving the BNB brand an attractive and legible position on the building. And on the road.

Voodoo made liberal use of digital print around the entrance which gives the office emphatic ownership of the building but does so without harming or moving a brick that defines the frontage. It sits there making a big, orange splash, recessed into the iconic arch that countless thousands of swimmers would have walked through in times past. ‘Bristol North Baths’ still radiates from the stonework above our knockout graphics. The graphics are applied behind the glazing and produced using clear, reverse printed Metamark MD5 backed with MD5 white.

Inside, the space is beautiful. Numerous identity continuations abound in printed MD5 and MD-WA WallArt reflecting the ‘Baths’ origins and, with the amount of glazing around, Metamark etch effect films played a useful role too.