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Festival catalogue for Película Pelikula:
9th Spanish Film Festival
Designing around erratic image quality--on a tight schedule
Festival catalogue for Película Pelikula:
9th Spanish Film Festival
Designing around erratic image quality--on a tight schedule
Client
Instituto Cervantes - Manila
Format
Catalogue
Year
2010
Dimensions
4 x 6 in
Instituto Cervantes - Manila
Format
Catalogue
Year
2010
Dimensions
4 x 6 in
The festival catalogue, viewed from the front and back.
Película Pelikula is the annual film festival organized by the Instituto Cervantes Manila. It is the largest Spanish and Latin American film festival in Southeast Asia. Having been invited to work on the project at a time when festival preparations were already well underway, I had to design the catalogue in such a way that it would connect to other existing publicity materials like posters and postcards.
Also, the design had to be flexible enough to accommodate a tight schedule. Due to logistical difficulties, the festival's lineup could only be finalized at the very last minute. Images for the catalogue could only be submitted in a staggered manner. Moreover, a major consideration was the varying quality of available images: some films had a wide selection of high-resolution film stills, while others only had poster layouts with text superimposed on the images. Still others had only scanned posters or DVD inlays, where the halftone patterns were clearly visible. Worse, a few films only had low-resolution pictures to work with.
Also, the design had to be flexible enough to accommodate a tight schedule. Due to logistical difficulties, the festival's lineup could only be finalized at the very last minute. Images for the catalogue could only be submitted in a staggered manner. Moreover, a major consideration was the varying quality of available images: some films had a wide selection of high-resolution film stills, while others only had poster layouts with text superimposed on the images. Still others had only scanned posters or DVD inlays, where the halftone patterns were clearly visible. Worse, a few films only had low-resolution pictures to work with.
The front cover, featuring photography by Nikkorlai Tapan.
Inside spread featuring the poster image.
The cover image features a photo that, while clearly from the same set, was different from the one used on the poster and postcard. From the original grayscale, the image was also toned a light, warm orange--a hue of the Instituto's signature red-orange color. This was a conscious decision in order to create variety in the publicity materials while still maintaining a unified look. The image was tightly cropped to highlight the "crazy" eyes, and to eliminate redundancy since the Instituto's logo is already painted onto the model's face.
The poster image was used in an inside spread with text about the festival. This boosts the festival's image recall.
The movie schedule is laid out in a simple, easy-to-follow grid which greets the viewer upon opening the catalogue.
A spread on one of the festival's guest filmmakers. The same look--orange box plus monotone image--was used in other similar events in order to visually unify them.
For the inside pages, an array of brush-written elements were created to unify the various styles of photography and illustration accompanying each film. Page numbers and section headings were introduced in the folio line to make navigation easier for readers. A two-column layout was used to quickly distinguish between Spanish and English texts.
A limited color palette based on the images was used to simultaneously give unity and variety throughout the layout. The catalogue's small size allows for even low-resolution images to be used (although printed small) without looking out of place, and also makes it handy for viewers, since it can easily fit into one's pocket.
A limited color palette based on the images was used to simultaneously give unity and variety throughout the layout. The catalogue's small size allows for even low-resolution images to be used (although printed small) without looking out of place, and also makes it handy for viewers, since it can easily fit into one's pocket.
The brushstrokes make for good image "frames." Note the folio line which helps as a navigational tool.
The strokes also unify the spreads, which feature varying styles of images like illustrations (left), photographs, and screen grabs (right).
For images sourced from posters, the strokes conveniently cover up bits of text and other unwanted details which clutter the images.
The brushstrokes were also used to liven up the institutional pages found at the back of the catalogue.
The first publicity materials (like the postcard, left) featured the festival theme in a brush font. I created a new treatment (right) using a dry brush, to make the text more distinctive and give it texture and authenticity.
