Festival Star
Encyclopedia

The Festival Star was the graphic symbol designed by Abram Games
Abram Games
Abram Games OBE, RDI was a British graphic designer.Born Abraham Gamse in Whitechapel, London on the day World War I began in 1914, he was the son of Joseph Gamse, a Latvian photographer, and Sarah, a seamstress born on the border of Russia and Poland. His father anglicized the family name to...

 for the 1951 Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...

. Games was one of 12 artists invited to submit designs to the Arts Council
Arts council
An arts council is a government or private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad...

 and the Council of Industrial Design in 1948, and won the limited competition. The brief requested a design reflecting a "summer of gaiety and good looks"

The logo (which Games called an emblem) uses the traditional red, white and blue
Red, White and Blue
Red, White and Blue is a fictional trio of soldiers from DC Comics.Red Dugan of The United States Marine Corps, Whitey Smith of the Army, and Blooey Blue of the Navy made up the Red, White & Blue team, U.S. agents who fought against Axis forces during World War II. They were helped by FBI agent...

 colours of the Union Flag
Union Flag
The Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack, is the flag of the United Kingdom. It retains an official or semi-official status in some Commonwealth Realms; for example, it is known as the Royal Union Flag in Canada. It is also used as an official flag in some of the smaller British overseas...

. The main device incorporates a profile of Britannia
Britannia
Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...

's head, with crested helmet, on the "north" point of a four-pointed compass rose
Compass rose
A compass rose, sometimes called a windrose, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions — North, East, South and West - and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional...

. Games added a row of bunting
Bunting (textile)
Bunting was originally a specific type of lightweight worsted wool fabric generically known as tammy, manufactured from the turn of the 17th century, and used for making ribbons. and flags, including signal flags for the Royal Navy...

 flags to his first design concept when asked to make it more festive. The anticlockwise halves of each compass point
Compass Point
Compass Point may refer to:* Compass point, a direction on a traditional compass* Compass Point * Compass Point Shopping Centre, a shopping mall in Singapore* Compass Point Studios, a studio in Nassau, Bahamas...

 are coloured, with the clockwise halves white: the "east" and "west" points are red and white, and the "north" and "south" points (including Britannia's head) are blue and white. The figures "19" in blue and "51" in red appear in the lower left (SW) and right (SE) quadrants, with quarter circles of bunting below connecting the "south" compass point to the "east" and "west" points, with six flags either side of the "south" point and a pattern of four flags (white, red, white, blue) repeated three times. A version used on official publications places the logo on a background quartered in a background colour and black, surrounded by four additional compass points.

The logo adorned many official publications and souvenirs including beer mats, paper napkins, egg cups, brass pokers and plastic cocktail sticks. It was also used on village signs erected in every village in Bedfordshire by the county council.

Games also designed a London Transport
London Transport
London Transport could refer to:*London Transport Transport authorities that operated services under the brand:*London Passenger Transport Board *London Transport Executive *London Transport Board...

 poster for the exhibition, based on his logo, with the two-dimensional compass rose converted into a depiction of a three-dimensional structure with four points, resembling a signpost or weather vane, and Britannia's head replaced by the London Transport roundel
Roundel
A roundel in heraldry is a disc; the term is also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of different colours.-Heraldry:...

.

The logo continues to see use today in advertisements concerning the South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...

area of London.

Further reading

  • A Symbol for the Festival: Abram Games and the Festival of Britain, Naomi Games, Capital Transport, London, 2011, ISBN 185414345X
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