It was an honour to be asked to be this year’s visual artist for WOMAD festival 2026.

With graphic design by Real World’s in-house designer Marc Bessant, my role in the project was to create characters that could be used across posters, social media, screen, printed programme, website and T-shirts.

The characters were based on an original acrylic painting I had created a few years earlier called Dancehall. The figures were made from multi-coloured angular lines, interlinking with each other to create energy and movement.

This year’s WOMAD art made playful use of these characters with a similar colour palette. Fortuitously the figures paired well visually with the typography WOMAD has been using as part of its identity in recent years.

My first professional design job was for WOMAD back in the 90s, so with this commission it was a great opportunity to come back full circle to where my creative career began!

Original acrylic painting design alongside WOMAD’s line-up poster.