Culture Durham, a partnership of cultural organisations from across County Durham, has unveiled its new brand and website.
The partnership, which has been operating since 2009, works with cultural organisations and creative practitioners from across the county to help change lives for the better.
It has relaunched its website and brand identity in advance of submitting a bid for UK City of Culture 2025, along with its key partners Durham County Council and Durham University early next month.
County Durham was named as one of just eight locations to make it onto the longlist for the title of UK City of Culture 2025 and the Culture Durham partnership is now working on the next stage of the application process.
The partnership has developed real momentum in pulling the bid together and harnessed the creative energy of partners to demonstrate why County Durham should be crowned UK City of Culture 2025.
Securing this prestigious title would not only bring huge social and economic benefits to the county, but it would also raise its profile as a leading cultural destination.
Culture Durham has used culture to build connections especially in the county’s most deprived communities and the success of these projects highlight how culture plays a key role in improving lives in terms of health and wellbeing, economy and social inclusion.
The partnership hopes to expand on its work by securing levelling up investment to help embed culture and wellbeing as a core part of the county’s economic recovery.
Tony Harrington, chair of Culture Durham, said: “This is a really exciting time for Culture Durham Partnership, as we’ve been working hard alongside key partners, creative organisations and practitioners from across the county on the next stage of the UK City of Culture 2025 bid.
“There has been an abundance of fantastic ideas, which demonstrate what a creative place County Durham is and the importance of culture in our lives. It has been great working with so many of the county’s talented creatives on the bid and we’re looking forward to being able to develop our ideas much further over the coming months.
“With this in mind, Culture Durham took the opportunity to refresh our brand identity and website to reflect the personality of the partnership and to strengthen its core mission of using culture to change lives. We’re delighted with our new look and believe it represents our rich and diverse cultural and heritage sectors.”
Culture Durham worked with brand communications agency, Gardiner Richardson, to develop its new brand identity and with Newcastle-based web agency, Bloom Digital on its new website.
It plans to expand its network of organisations and practitioners across County Durham by increasing its communications with the cultural and heritage sectors. Its new website brings together insight into these sectors and will showcase some of the amazing work its partners do to help change lives.
Over the coming months the site will grow as a hub for cultural organisations and creative practitioners across County Durham to share best practice, access funding and networking opportunities and to raise the profile of specific work or projects.