Graphic designers and artists with lived experience of migration and displacement are invited to express an interest in creating the visual identity and graphic design elements for Refugee Festival Scotland 2025. We would like to commission an artist from any art field to design a poster that will form the basis of the visual identity for Refugee Festival Scotland 2025.

This is an annual call, which has in recent years supported the work of artists Malini Chakrabarty, Mousa Al-Nana and the arts collective Museum of Things.

Deadline for expression of interest: Wednesday 8th January, noon.

Poster design

We are looking for 1 poster design to advertise and promote the festival. The poster will be displayed on street sites across Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and other areas of Scotland.

Poster size: A3

We want the design to be eye-catching, to make people stop and look, and for them to read the info on it about the festival, so something simple and clear is ideal!  

We are open to the design style, but please keep in mind the feeling and aims of the festival when designing.  

We are looking for artwork that meets the following guidelines: 

• is original, eye catching and uplifting 
• is a good visual representation of this year’s theme: MILESTONES
• works across the marketing, communications and branding campaigns of the Festival 
• encapsulates Refugee Festival Scotland and what it stands for 

Information to go on the poster:

Refugee Festival Scotland  

A festival for everyone 

Fri 13th – Sun 22nd June 2025

refugeefestivalscotland.co.uk 

#RefugeeFestScot 

Please leave space at the bottom of the poster for a row of logos, which we’ll supply.  

Other design elements

Based on the poster design, we also need the following: 

• An A5 leaflet promoting the festival: text will be provided in early March
• Website banner for www.refugeefestivalscotland.co.uk (landscape format)
• Social media banners (for Twitter and Facebook, just one design but with different dimensions) 
• A selection of five graphics and a 15 second animation for use in social media
• Key design elements supplied as PNG/SVG/JPG/AI files (as appropriate) that can be uploaded to Canva so that we can create our own, in-house social media and web graphics, print materials, reports and presentation slides. 

Font

Please develop your poster artwork using the festival website fonts:

• Work Sans bold
• Work Sans regular

You may select an additional font if you wish to and combine it with our in-house fonts.

Colours

Please select for us a palette of 6 accessible colours and send us the hex codes so we can match these in our work. One of these colours should be #69d047.

We recommend using this tool for colour palette selection: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/.

You will need to test the chosen background colour against either a black or white foreground colour (Black: #000000 White: #FFFFFF). The standard needed for the festival website is WCAG AA. 

Timeline

25th November – 8th January: Designer call open 
8th January, noon: Deadline to apply
Late January: Appointment made 
25th February: Initial proofs due
14th March: Final design and deliverables deadline  

Delivery

Sign off and agreement will take place once the draft design has been approved by Scottish Refugee Council’s Festival and Communications teams.

The deadline for final design of banners/headings and all other elements is Friday 14th March 2025. 

Fee

The fee available is £1,350 

How to apply

Please fill out this expression of interest if you would like to apply.

Once you have submitted your application, you will receive a copy of it by email. Please check that you have received this, to ensure that your application has been successfully submitted.

If you have any questions, please contact the Festival team at festival@scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk