PROJECT SUMMARY

Hayao Miyazaki is perhaps the world’s best known Japanese anime film director, producer, and screenwriter. His films have easily bridged the gap between Eastern and Western cultures, and under his direction Studio Ghibli became a household name in Japan.

Inspired by Miyazaki’s work, I created a concept for a film festival in his honor. The goal of this exercise was to generate functional branded material for a stand-alone event. While the event never took place in real life, I set out to create a visual identity for the festival that pays homage to Miyazaki’s films while uniting them under a recognizable style.

Because all of Studio Ghibli's films are wildly different and carry different tonality, I made the decision to use the theme of “ending credits” to unify them under the festival brand. Believe it or not, every single brand element is actually made exclusively from typographic glyphs. Take a look at the icons and dissect them to see what symbols they are made from!

Below are samples from this project, including both digital and physical applications of the branding. Be sure to follow the link below the demo to see a live version of the web companion app.

MOVIE ICONS

The main feature of the festival branding hinges on the uniquely designed icons. Iconic characters or items from each movie are transformed into graphics built purely from letterforms and glyphs. This both unifies the films under one brand while also maintaining the theme of “movie credits.”

Below you can see samples of some of these icons and the source material that inspired them. Take a close look to check out how the glyphs come together.

INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL GUIDE

For the event, I designed an interactive guide for guests. It began as an interactive flash app, but with the decline of flash, I decided it would be best to recreate it with HTML5. This also gave me the opportunity to make it responsive so it can be used on a multitude of devices.

The app allows users to view information from each film including movie trailers and a synopsis. The icons in the bottom right will also take users to screening schedules and an interactive map of the event hall.

To see the page in action, click the demo below or the button to take you to a live experience.

SCREENING POSTER

As an additional piece, I created a poster with the screening dates for each film. I used this as an opportunity to show the adaptability of the branding into printed media. I wanted to use the icons in a way that brought the static text to life. Fun fact: this is a one-hundred percent typographic piece.