Rabbithole’s fifth LIFI identity balances reinvention with recognition

Leeds International Festival of Ideas has a recognition problem – the good kind. Every October, the city anticipates what visual form the festival will take, with residents looking out for the new artwork appearing across billboards and street posters. For 2025, Leeds and Glasgow-based studio Rabbithole answered that anticipation with squidgems: cherubic, herd-like creatures that gather, dance and move in collective choreography. The squidgems represent the clearest evolution from Rabbithole’s 2024 identity, which featured abstract, emoji-like metallic faces reflecting audience emotions during events. That concept resonated strongly enough to warrant continuation, but Creative Director Tim Dee and the team wanted to push it further. “While the squidgems are less facially expressive, they have more of a body – with ears, legs and a fuller anatomical form that reads more clearly as a character or creature,” Dee explains. “This opened up playful new possibilities: they can gather in herds, line up in a conga or take on other collective behaviours that bring them to life.” The festival, with 2025 as its fifth year, brought together 5,500 attendees over five days in October 2025. The lineup included Chuck D, David Baddiel and Caitlin Moran, tackling questions like ‘Is Religion the Ultimate Culture War?,’ ‘Where Have All the Good Men Gone?,’ and ‘Who Rules the World?’ The programming closed with an emotional performance from Vicky McClure’s Dementia Choir at Leeds Playhouse.