ESSEX-based design consultancy Silk Pearce has developed a distinctive new brand identity and a new website for an art and craft organisation based in Suffolk.

Smiths Row, previously known as Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, has adopted the new identity in a bid to widen its visitor appeal and better reflect its role in working with contemporary artists from Suffolk and beyond.

Silk Pearce, based in Colchester, has produced a striking logo using changing patterns to identify different services and activities, such as the gallery shop or Smiths Row Two, which offers art activities for children and young people with disabilities.

The typography and design style developed for the relaunch has been applied to the www.smithsrow.org website as well as printed literature.

Silk Pearce has also developed a series of design templates allowing the gallery to quickly and cost-effectively create event posters and other promotional items with the same distinctive new look and feel as its other material.

Alison Plumridge, director of Smiths Row, said: “Silk Pearce understands exactly how creative organisations work, making them the perfect partner for our re-launch.

“The team has designed a really lively visual identity, together with a clean looking, easy to navigate website that reflects our current offer and future aspirations.

“The content management system is also so easy to use that virtually anyone within our in-house team can update the pages daily with details of the gallery’s latest activities and news.”

Smiths Row is based in the Grade I-listed Market Cross building in the centre of Bury St Edmunds, with its educational projects being run at Smiths Row Two in the nearby Cornhill Walk Shopping Centre.

It also works in community venues at locations including Barningham, Stowmarket, Ingham and Moreton Hall.