THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Thessaloniki International Film Festival

BA in GRAPHIC DESIGN

Final year project/dissertation

Creative Thinking

This assignment deals with the redesign of the visual identity of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival for its 60 years of operation. Cinema is the audio visual art also known as the seventh art, next to sculpture, painting, dance, architecture, music and literature. Choosing an international festival allows for the creation of many applications and is a design challenge. The creative thinking follows the definition of the concept of cinema and tries to visualise it in combination with its evolution over the years. Key elements of reference will be image, movement and space. At the same time, reference will be made to the anniversary character of the 60th event in combination with the reference of the city of Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki’s Film Festival, the country's largest film institution, promotes cinema throughout the year, highlighting the history of the present and the future voices of Greek and global independent production. Throughout the year, the institution presents first screenings and film tributes, and holds events in its four halls in Thessaloniki. The aim of the assignment is to visualise the concept of cinema, its evolution over the years and the creative performance of selected films included in the screening program.

*The sources of inspiration for the design of the Festival's logo are the hall, the cinema space where a film is shown, the letter "Θ" and the iris.

Logotype

Characteristic of the first cinemas, as we mentioned, is the one and only cinema hall. It is a large room with a capacity for many people with a variety of social characteristics. In other words, we have a complex, diverse audience that conforms to the one and only spectacle. The large-capacity hall therefore presents intense collectivity and sociability, while It is very interesting if one considers the social characteristics of the people it hosts, the different educational level and even the different momentary mood. The composition of the audience, although diverse and orderly, achieves a harmonious convergence thanks to the created atmosphere.

When it comes to its influence and the way it was treated, in the past the cinematic event was treated by the audience with much greater participatory enthusiasm than nowadays and up to a point it makes sense since the audience came in contact with a spectacle that was unprecedented and continuously evolving. They witnessed new discoveries and conquests of technology, every spectacle and every subject was new and its display on screen was unexpected.

60 Years International Film Festival

*The sources of inspiration for the Festival's visual identity design for 60 years are the hall, the cinema space where a film is shown and its perspective.

The rendering of the space in perspective, with linear shapes symbolises the different perspective that the viewer can have in the room, literally and figuratively, while watching the same film each viewer draws his own conclusions. The film may be the same for all viewers, but the perspective will be varied. The large-capacity hall presents intense collectivity and sociability, as the social characteristics of the people it hosts, the different educational level and even the different momentary mood differ.

Designing the visual identity of an international festival is quite demanding. There are many applications in which the identity should be functional no matter how many variations in size are made. This was one of the first things I thought of when designing a linear perspective of the room. How this shape can be "flexible" and retain its identity in any application, of any size.