It is a truth universally acknowledged that any “new product” must be in want of a logo.
Bewdley Festival was no exception, and designing a logo was high on the agenda when it started in 1988.


An early attempt was considered rather clichéd, and so local artist Margaret Layton was asked to apply her nationally recognised talents.
Her initial concept was a capital ‘B’, garnished with visual references to the arts and music, later embellished with a stylised painter’s palette and, as Mrs Layton puts it, “a flower – just to cheer it all up”.
One of the secrets of the logo’s success is that it works so well at all sizes, from leaflets and programmes to large flags and banners.
Twenty-five years ago, Mrs Layton had little idea that the impact and longevity of her design would be such that it is still the instantly recognisable visual shorthand for  the festival.
The logo was an instant hit and Mrs Layton was absorbed into the festival as its visual arts director, designing festival programmes, liaising with printers and organising displays of local artists’ work in the (then) Heath Hotel, the library and various shop windows. Mrs Layton also oversaw the festival’s craft, design and painting workshops and Riverbank Art stalls along Severn Side North.
From the outset, Mrs Layton brought her high professional standards to the festival. After several successful years, she withdrew from festival to concentrate on teaching art to adults at her home studio.
At the age of 16, she  had gone to study at Wallasey School of Art, promising her parents that she would also take a teaching qualification.
A chance meeting on a family holiday in Cornwall with Reg Butler, an acclaimed sculptor, led to him forwarding her first year’s work to the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Mrs Layton was offered a place for three years, later extended to four. After qualifying with Distinction, she took the promised teaching qualification and taught painting and pottery, architecture and history of art at King Edward’s School for Girls, Birmingham. Then along came children and the commitments of family life.
Mrs Layton takes delight in recalling the extremes of her career, from the frustrations of exhibiting in a marquee at the Three Counties Showground in atrocious weather, to the distinctly more prestigious opening of her solo exhibition at London’s Barbican.
Along the way, Mrs Layton has been voted a Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, has exhibited with the Royal Institution of Watercolour Artists and at the Royal Water Colour Society and New English Art Club Open Exhibitions. She will be exhibiting at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists later in the year.