Sarasota Film Festival

01. DESIGN CHALLENGE

The Sarasota Film Festival, founded in 1998
by John Welch, is an international film festival hosted in Sarasota, Florida and viewable from around the world. The
festival is typically held each April. This original logo has been in use for about 25 years, with very little adjustments
or changes minutes some flourishes
during specific years like 2013.

To create a memorable identity for Sarasota Film Festival that creatively but concisely captures the excitement of a world-class film festival.

02. RESEARCH

With the ‘Manatee Educational’ YouTube channel, you can view the festival interviews from multiple years. Spanning back to 2012. With none of them using any specific opening besides a simple fade in.

The general design aesthetic of the festival changes from year to year, the logo staying essentially the same. The branding is different portraying a different mood and atmosphere.

With that in mind, the process then went towards working on the initial design approaches.

03: IDEATIONS

The overall direction of the project is not necessarily a rebrand, but a refresh of the already existing logo. With that in mind, the same general shape of the original logo was kept in tact, with the initial ideations focusing on restructuring the placements of the three primary colors.

While the initial pass was a step in the right direction, the general flow of the logo was a step too far away from the original, with the font choice and stacking of the letters being problematic as well.

04: DEVELOPMENT

With the first pass, adding a bit more of a dynamic style to the logo was important, not only that but making sure to nail down the font type for the text seen next to the logo.

The major note was to further explore other possibilities for other fonts to see which ones are still identifiable, readable, yet also fresh for the brand.

ANIMATION FIRST PASS

With the animation itself, I made one of three storyboards that only one was to be selected. The goal was to emulate the aura of adverts for companies like 'Vizio' or 'Hulu.'

For starters, the general note was to shrink the main logo, in addition to adjusting the text formatting to that of a column rather than a single line of text.

Seeing as how the logo was shaping up to it's final version, the goal now was to figure out a position of the 'SFF' text seen in the original company logo. With the overall goal finding the original silhouette, with a more modern look with a colored gradient.

ANIMATION SECOND PASS

The stage of minor adjustments and slight tweaks that really help complete the picture and the project as a whole. Making an effort to have the new logo resemble the original a bit further, shrinking it further down, and the final font choice being 'Century Gothic.'

In addition to that, the rule was then established on when I would include the logo with the 'SFF' located inside, and when it would just be written out as 'Sarasota Film Festival' right next to the main logo. Nailing down how the overall composition would look like on merchandise, on official promotional material, etc.