Case Study: The Helix, Home of The Kelpies
Client: The Helix, Home of The Kelpies
The Helix was born from an idea in 2003 to build an eco-park as part of the Falkirk Greenscape Initiative, transforming 350 hectares of land between Falkirk and Grangemouth. Today, The Helix connects 16 local communities through extensive pathways stretching over 27 km.
Falkirk Council, Central Scotland Forest Trust, and British Waterways Scotland (now Scottish Canals), with support from the project's conceptual designers, prepared a detailed master plan for a unique outdoor green space.
The first Helix bid was submitted to the Big Lottery Fund in early 2006. In August 2006, Big Lottery awarded The Helix a development grant to prepare a Stage 2 submission. This enabled The Helix to bid for a grant of between £10 million and £25 million. The Helix was awarded the maximum £25 million grant from Big Lottery in November 2007. This was one of only three UK projects selected to receive cash from the Lottery's Living Landmarks programme.
On 14th September 2013, Helix Day celebrated the opening of Helix Park, the zone at the heart of The Helix. Nearly 20,000 people attended the event, which saw community art projects meet popular artists to create a series of colourful spectacles across the park. At this time, the 30-metre-high kelpies were being constructed along with the Queen Elizabeth II extension to the existing Forth and Clyde canal, which opened on 21st April 2014 and is known as The Kelpies Hub.
Brief
To create a family-focused resource to engage children and teach visitors about The Kelpies, whilst encouraging families to explore the surrounding area, canal path and The Helix.
To get a full understanding of the project, Lorraine travelled to The Helix in Falkirk and held a collaborative meeting with Paulina Piotrowska, (visitor services supervisor) and Debby Walker (accounts team). Lorraine presented our proposal for an A5, 16-page activity book and postcard. We created Hunter, a hedgehog character, illustrated by our in-house designer Vanessa. Paulina and Debby were delighted to see their ideas brought to life and shared the proof with their team for feedback.
Following feedback, our creative team developed the activity book. It contains educational facts, narrated by Hunter the hedgehog, and fun puzzles for children to complete on site, in the car, or at home.
The activity book is now available to purchase in The Helix visitor centre shop.
The results: The Helix Activity Book Success
Since we produced The Helix activity book, we received the following feedback from Paulina, (visitor services supervisor) at The Helix:
“The children's activity book is definitely a big hit, we have a popular social media campaign and the sales of the activity book are great. We are also running a competition where we ask the child visitors to a draw a picture of Hunter (our hedgehog mascot), and the lucky winner receives a family ticket for The Kelpies tour. I am absolutely overwhelmed with the number of drawings we have received already! So far, we have sold 156 activity books! I am very happy with this number, as it translates to selling an average of 1.5 books per day! The activity book is a great addition to complement a visit to The Kelpies; both our adult and child visitors love them.
“A massive thank you to Lorraine and her amazing team. It was great to work with you! The process went smoothly, and I was amazed how quickly our ideas came together as an eco-friendly kids' activity book. The sales are absolutely fantastic and totally exceeded my expectations. We will be using Colour Heroes again – I highly recommend!”
