St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival 2014-Ongoing

Celebrating women in film with creative festival designs

“St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival is one of the longest-running women’s film festivals in the world. Established in 1989 with a bold vision of supporting and promoting women’s creative work in screen-based industries, the Festival has grown from a single evening of screenings to a province’s flagship film festival.” — SJIWFF

In our years of collaboration with the Festival, our focus has been to help SJIWFF achieve their vision—celebrating films made by women, for everyone. Each year we have challenged ourselves to create designs that speak to new potential audience members, as well as the Festival’s steadfast audience of core supporters. This is a taster of some of the design approaches we’ve taken in collaboration with the excellent festival team.

An overview of eight SJIWFF posters from 2014 to 2021

Festival posters from 2014 to 2021

Two page schedule spread from the 2018 SJIWFF program with eccentric illustrations and film screening listings

The 2018 season was awarded an Applied Arts Illustration Award

A yellow SJIWFF festival pass on a lanyard, shown against a plaid shirt

A green women's shirt with a white logo on it depicting a film reel that looks like a cake

The 30th anniversary was celebrated with cake

Designing for the festival is an exercise in visual communication. Our designs must be creative and exciting, but must also work on lanyards and in programs as much as they do on billboards and social posts. Each year we also create an animated trailer, so motion is top of mind from the outset.

An SJIWFF postcard and program lie on a table next to 3D glasses

The 2017 festival design was viewable with 3D glasses

The 2020 season, with the theme “Made by women, for everyone, from anywhere” included GIF loops of the poster elements; this season’s design won an Applied Arts award in the Illustration category.