Illuminating Health Paths

Réalta is the exciting new National Body for Arts and Health in Ireland. What began as a pilot driven by a single doctor, in a single hospital in Waterford in 1990 – had in recent years grown into a much larger national movement to reintegrate the arts into health treatments and strategies. And by June 2022, informed and inspired by decades of hands-on-practice under the Waterford Healing Arts Trust, the time had come for an official national body to be formed.

How should it be structured and connected to the existing Waterford Healing Arts Trust brand? And what should it be called?

The process started with open discussions with all stakeholders and a facilitated brand workshop to understand why a national body for Arts and Health in Ireland was needed. This information was used to hone a suitable brand structure that would involve a new brand name and identity for the national body.

Then we began to create. We took all the rich insights, the heartfelt stories and passionate dreams the team had shared in our discussions and began the process of distilling it all down, to define this new national brand’s purpose. Its why. Which emerged as being “to illuminate health paths”.

And with this clarity we started into our brand naming creative process, from which one name unanimously stood apart for everyone – RÉALTA. This Irish word for star powerfully communicates what this new body is here to do. And set the team up to begin their vital work shining a light on the transformative and central role The Arts play in Health nationally.

Finally, we empowered the team with a new meaningful brand identity and website to launch this new national body under. We designed a motif in the Réalta identity to represent overlapping health paths, that interact and transform into a star. And a vibrant new colour palette to convey a sense of illumination across their visual language and website too – communicating the sense of optimism and energy this exciting new brand has for the future of health paths in Ireland.