Winning festival fringe cover design '˜shouts Buxton'

Joanna Allen, an artist and printmaker from New Mills with a textiles background, came up with the winning artwork, a vibrant collagraph print entitled Orange Festival Folk.

Some 20,000 programmes featuring her artwork will now be printed for next summer’s Buxton Festival Fringe, who ran the cover design competition.

Joint runners-up were Amy Whelan with Festival Fun and Pam Smart with Buxton Circular.

Keith Savage, Chair of the Buxton Festival Fringe, said: “We love Joanna’s design - it is imaginative, bold and burns with excitement. It shouts out ‘Buxton’ but is very different to our recent artwork.”

A member of Peak District Artisans, Joanna will be exhibiting at The Dome in Buxton as part of Fringe 2018.

The Fringe enthusiast, who collects £100 in prize money, said: “My musician brother Will Hawthorne and my sister Susie Hawthorne and brother-in-law George Telfer, who are both actors, have been involved in Fringe events over the years, so I am very excited to be able to contribute something myself at last.

“My collagraph print Festival Folk celebrates the diversity of people of all types and ages who take part in the Fringe and make it so special.

“I tried to combine all the elements that make Buxton such a unique town: the historical importance of the natural mineral water, the spectacular architecture and the people.

“Each festival person has a ‘hat’ which references one of Buxton’s significant architectural features, mostly the town’s numerous domes, both big and small.

“And of course I had to include an image of spring water flowing from the lion’s mouth at St Ann’s Well.”