10 Minutes with Rich Keay, designer of our 2026 Poster

You might not know it, but you've probably already seen the work of Shrewsbury artist Rich Keay, designer of our 2026 festival poster. Every year Coleham businesses embrace the Festival spirit by re-imagining their plate glass windows as canvases and inviting local artists to unleash their creativity across them. In 2025, Canny Cuts, Coleham Barbers and Hair Forum all had their windows transformed by Rich. And that's not all. As part of his day job at the town's Waterstone's book shop, Rich is responsible for the decorated chalk board outside the store. The Festival Blog caught up with him for a quick chat about the inspiration for this year's poster design, and what the Festival means to him.

Festival Blog: Hi Rich. Wow! We really love your poster for the 2026 Festival. How did 'Fantasy', this year's Festival theme, inspire you?

Rich: I used to be into a lot of fantasy stuff when I was a kid, so I've already got a lot of those images in my head. 'Movement', which was last year's theme, was harder to pin down, but fantasy images are quite strong and recognisable. I came up with six or eight different ideas based around dragons, Medusa, that kind of thing. The fairy was actually the last one I came up with, it was kind of a last minute one.

FB: The way the design incorporates the wording into the picture is great. It makes it look complete.

Rich: After I came up with the idea of the fairy, I was trying to think of how to do the text around it, and I was drawn to the artist Aphonse Mucha. He incorporates writing into his work, and a lot of it is hand-done, which means you don't have to worry about precise lettering to get the right look. His lettering is nice and rounded and hand-drawn, so you can get away with the odd little imperfection. I used to love Art Nouveau when I was at art college. I was into all that fantasy, gothic-y area of art I guess.

FB: Sounds like you're happy with this year's Festival theme!

Rich: People are interested in fantasy. It's on trend. Working at the book shop, a genre called Romantasy is one of the biggest sellers at the minute. It's fantasy romance, but it's still fantasy, just another area of it.  And fantasy series on TV, Netflix and such, they're all really popular. It's not something that's ever really gone out of fashion. Because of that, I think it lends itself to ideas for the festival as well. People are familiar with it, they've watched lots of fantasy films.

FB: What are you looking forward to at this year's Festival?

Rich: Well, I'm assuming I'm going to be doing windows again this year. I did three last year, so I probably won't get away with doing less than that this year! Last year the windows were a thing in their own right, with people coming down to Coleham specifically to look at them, which was great. Apart from that I quite fancy the Manga workshop and the life drawing event. Oh, and the scarecrows of course. I love them.