Ipswich Central x ITFC

DESIGN | ANIMATION | SIGNAGE

We love a sprint. Briefed Monday, rolling out Friday.

This was a collaborative project between Ipswich Central, WHAT associates and Ipswich Town Football Club, bringing the town together at a defining moment in the football season.

Ipswich Town are in line for promotion back into the Premiership, either automatic (hopefully Saturday) or via the play-offs (fingers-crossed). Ipswich Central wanted to turn the town blue. Show support for the team and build a sense of expectation and celebration in the town centre.

The Brief (Monday)

We started with a walk around the town centre, a quick recce. With timings so tight, we knew whatever we did had to be achievable, but still have impact.

Debenhams has been closed for a while and it’s become a bit of an eyesore. Our first idea was large-scale hoardings. Big, bold type to instantly improve the space and rally support for the team.

At the same time, it’s no secret the club has been under fire recently due to an unfortunate situation. We wanted to shift the focus back onto supporting the team, to show clearly that the town is behind them.

Louise Cobbold, who created the match day programme artwork for the 2025/26 Championship season, has been instrumental in making this happen. We reached out directly to understand her licensing agreement with the club and whether there was any possibility of incorporating her work. I spoke with Chris, her husband and business partner, they were genuinely excited to be involved and wholeheartedly behind the idea of making the artwork accessible to everyone.

From Friday, player portraits will start appearing across the town, a kind of open-air portrait gallery. A huge thank you to Louise and Chris for their generosity and belief in the project.

The plan was to bring the full series together across shop windows, businesses, and venues and hanging banners from the Town Hall.

Then came the practical bit: costs, print, manufacturing and making it all happen in time for Saturday, including brand sign-off from ITFC. Massive thanks to Adam at Signs4U for practical advice and helping us find cost-effective, achievable solutions under pressure. Also to Andreas at Hudson’s Group, who helped us pull together a spec and manage print production of the portraiture as static clings that could be applied directly to windows.

Collaboration (and a lot of WhatsApp)

This project has only been possible because of how quickly everyone moved.

Apologies to Lee Walker at Ipswich Central for the constant stream of WhatsApp messages 😉

Both the Ipswich Central and ITFC teams have been incredibly responsive and generous with their time and feedback. ITFC have also donated A2 player portrait posters for distribution to shops and businesses.

Toolkit for Businesses

To make it easy for businesses to get involved, we created a simple toolkit designed for quick, flexible participation. Businesses can support the campaign by sharing graphics on social media, displaying player and support posters in their windows, dressing shopfronts in blue and white, adding bunting or flags and encouraging staff to wear blue and white on Saturday 2nd May. In return, they receive A2 player portrait posters (featuring Louise’s artwork, kindly donated by ITFC), printable A3/A4 posters and a suite of social media graphics, typography and ready-made posts. Everything is designed to be used wherever it works best, from shop windows and entrances to counters and interior displays, helping amplify the message right across the town.

Alongside the physical rollout, we’re creating motion graphics to spread the rallying call across the town on social media.

Outcome

A town-wide show of support. And the best news, Ipswich Town has been promoted to the Premier League! #townbehindtheteam #ITFC #Ipswich