Traverse City Film Festival
Case Study
Iwas the Art Director for the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) for 5 festivals — including the inaugural Winter Comedy Arts Festival. Within my role (volunteering nights and weekends leading up to the festivals) I handled everything from designing the posters, logo and merchandise to items like bus wraps and street banners. I also worked in all parts of the process, including design to production ready art and final approval of proofs.
My contribution:
- Festival Branding
- Co-created Festival Theme and Concepts
- Poster Design
- Creative Direction: Photoshoots
- Festival Store Merchandise: T-shirts, Mugs, Hats, Magnets, etc.
- Window/Bus Clings
- Signage/Light Pole Banners/Wayfinding
- Staff & Industry Guests: Lanyards, Badges, T-shirts
- Website Design
- Overall Art Direction
Background
The Traverse City Film Festival was co-founded by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore. It is a non-profit educational and charitable organization. The festival is held annually in Traverse City, Michigan. It is now one of the largest film festivals in the Midwest.
There are 150–200 films screened and many are US or world premieres. The festival brings in film fans from all over the world, as well as top industry guests; actors, directors, and screenwriters.
The festival now has 120,000+ admissions, 150+ industry guests, and it takes 1,500–2000 volunteers to make it happen every year.
Challenges & Results
Starting from scratch
Being a volunteer organization the festival relies on the art direction provided by agencies (donated time from their team) or freelance designers. For the first seven or so years the film festival designers were recreating the branding and identity yearly. Essentially every year was starting from scratch. Due to this there was a huge lack in the continuity of the brand.
The poster and concept would always be designed first as a pitch by various designers and agencies based on a provided theme. The concept would be then approved by the festival director and ultimately, Mr. Moore.
In three out of the four years I pitched the festival with my concepts on a theme — they were all approved.
Everything has a purpose
There are a variety of elements that needed to be created for any festival or event of this size. Every one of those items had their own constraints.
For example, the badges for festival workers and industry guests of the festival need to allow for a variety of names, titles, and color coding to show the level of access they have throughout the festival venues.
There were many signs and banners to offer wayfinding and critical information. They needed to clearly help people navigate the festival locations across the city or find a bus to get them from one end of town to the other in time for movies or events.
Taking home the experience
There’s a feeling you get after seeing a great film. That feeling is something that you find everywhere at TCFF. There are volunteers that use their vacation time every year to come and work at the festival because of this experience.
Unlike just going to a movie on any random weekend, the audience at the festival is there to watch, examine, discuss, laugh, cry, and be moved. It was these kinds of elements that I tried to imbue in my work.
The merchandise was not just a t-shirt or mug. It was a way for the audience to take home a part of that feeling. One of my favorite parts of every festival was figuring out how to translate that year’s theme into a shirt that people would want to actually wear, or mug they would want to use every morning.
Building a brand
As the festival grew, so did the team and the needs. There were more elements that needed to be created and I alone couldn’t handle all of it. Also we were continuing to spend time in recreating elements from previous years. I was able to convince the leadership to create a true identity for the festival.
Through a consistent brand we were able to save a lot of annual costs like reprinting light pole banners and avoid having so many merchandise items that were out of date the next festival and couldn’t be sold again.
With the new system in place, I could coordinate with design interns and staff to help with the production of other assets. By following the brand guide I created and using assets from that year’s theme we could design a more consistent festival experience.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Below are additional highlighted photos and artwork from the years that I worked on the festivals.
Outcome
The festival leadership have been very happy with my work over the years.
[Francisco’s] poster designs have been some of our biggest sellers, and his dedication to our festival has helped it grow and become stronger visually.
Susan Fisher, Business Director — Traverse City Film Festival
We also received a lot of positive feedback from attendees about the work. The amount of merchandise sold was also a good indicator if we had done our job well in creating a theme and experience that people really enjoyed and wanted to be part of.
Being asked to come back — even after a gap of many years — is probably the best compliment that I could receive for my work. They continue to use my branding and many elements that I designed are still used in the festival.
For 4–5 months of the year things were very busy for me in the time leading up to the festivals. In the end, it was an experience that helped make me a better designer and expanded my mind with many new films.
Francisco Inchauste. User Experience, Strategy, and Interface Design.
You can read more of my writing here on Medium.
