San Francisco International Film Festival 50th Anniversary
In 2007 the San Francisco Film Society returned to Method, the creator of its award-winning new brand system the year before (see related story). 2007 would mark the 50th year of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), making it the first American film festival to reach this benchmark. The goal as a result was to develop a campaign for SFIFF worthy of such an historic anniversary.
The theme was history and heritage. To support this idea, we set the number 50, paired with the core SFIFF mark, in an elegant sans serif typeface. Gold became the primary color, in tribute to the momentous anniversary, with vivid jewel-like colors providing contrast. The bright floating circles of the previous year mutated into more expansive spheres, 50 in number, drawn with fine lines that interacted across both dynamic and static media in its different applications. As with the year before, the system spread across film clips, bus shelters, event signage and multiple other forms of media.
The new application of the brand system proved its flexibility in this new campaign. By mixing stable elements (the logotype, grid structure, and black-and-white film stills) and changeable ones (the accent colors and graphic elements) the brand system was able to accommodate a new, very different look and feel, with each year's look both reinforcing and extending the energetic and progressive brand.
