Spaghetti Circus

Spaghetti Circus is a not-for-profit organisation and one of Australia's most highly regarded circus schools for young people. It’s based in the NSW town of Mullumbimby. While the town itself has a population of just under 4,000 people, over 250,000 people experience Spaghetti Circus on an annual basis thanks to their 1,573 performances and events, which in total provide 229,602 participant hours of arts and cultural experiences each year.

Headjam put out a grant in 2020 that allowed not for profit organisations to apply for support with their branding and marketing efforts. Spaghetti Circus was selected as the recipient of the grant because of their focus on youth and their efforts to make their programs accessible to everyone via their hardship program.

Through their acrobatics circus teaching and coaching, they contribute to the social capital in regional Australia, fostering a sense of community, belonging and confidence in young people.

To increase the reach of Spaghetti Circus in inspiring and building resilient kids.

The target audience for this project were those interested in circus or gym in Northern NSW for themselves or their kids, Australian Arts funding bodies and the Australian circus community.

Circus for everyone.

Spaghetti Circus is a leading circus school in Australia. I love being part of the Spaghetti Circus community.

Brand visuals: We kept some of those fun and visually emblematic cues to classic circus themes, whilst pushing the brand into a new, fresh and modern space that would appeal to students, funding bodies and circus professionals.

We created a brand colour palette that visually portrays the energy, vibrance and joy that circus performances bring by complementing the two main colours (red and yellow) with a rich purple and warm pink.

The fonts choices are contemporary, with a subtle nod to circus’ past.

To design the logo we started with hand-drawn lettering and dynamic shapes inspired by the classic circus posters. We manipulated the type to fit in a circle, harking back to the recurring circle shapes found in circus imagery. Each letter appears to be performing – squashing, flexing and twisting into place. We then transformed each letter into a more organic spaghetti pasta shape. Finally, we added the brand’s primary colour palette.

Campaign: In order to attract new students and explain to audiences that Spaghetti Circus is a circus school, we created the concept for an advertising and digital marketing campaign. The messaging of the campaign circled around the fact that Spaghetti Circus use circus to inspire and build resilient kids and that, by empowering students, Spaghetti Circus help them build their confidence so they can steer their life whatever direction they choose.

We wanted to show the kids training hard but also, very importantly, having fun. It was essential to show inspirational images but also situations that were achievable for less fit or prospective members that aren’t confident.

Website: We designed the website to bring more of the energy, fun and vibrance in what Spaghetti Circus do while facilitating an improved user experience that would allow key audiences to easily navigate the site and would fairly showcase what Spaghetti Circus really does in the community.

Merchandise: As part of the strategy to create a cohesive brand, we designed t-shirts, hoodies, socks, hats and bags, as well as vehicle signage.

After the launch, Spaghetti Circus' funding increased from 10% of income to 60% of their revenue and the Circus secured multi-year Government support.

During the National Circus Festival, Spaghetti Circus increased ticket sales by 140%. 63% of these ticket sales were to audience members who attended the festival for the first time and 35% of the audience travelled from outside their local area.

Across the seven-day event period, more than 8,000 people engaged with the circus and there was a $3M flow on effect to the local economy.

Digital engagement was also successful, with 62,000 people engaged over the campaign.