CULTURAL INTEGRATION & INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT : USA X SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Film Days

Unveiling the Creative Community in a Changing Society

Event Branding & Identity System

Scope of Project

Strategy
Messaging
Brand & Identity Design
Cinematic Title Design & Production
Event Styling & Production Support
Web Design & Development
Book Design & Production
Digital Invitation Design
Digital & Print Ad Design
Press Release Copy Editing
Branded Gifts & Promotional Merchandise
Custom Award Design & Production

Challenge

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been going through major shifts in its society and culture; part of which includes building an entirely new and bold creative industry and cultivating its own wealth of local talent and production capabilities. With a history of being closed off to tourism and creative industries - even having a ban on cinema for decades - Saudi Film Days was a breakthrough initiative to turn the world's attention to Saudi's future and its desire to be more engaged with the international film community. The international debut of 12 Saudi filmmakers and their short films kicking off with screenings in Paramount Studios and DTLA, was a historical event in the film industry that we take pride in being selected as their creative partners.

Solution

We developed a brand identity system that revolved around three key messages; 1) Acknowledgement and appreciation for the rich history of the Kingdom, 2) Inspiring a new era for creativity that would rise in the Kingdom, and 3) Becoming a part of the international film industry in the most sophisticated way possible.

With these concepts directing us, we proceeded to design the brand identity system, event design, and all marketing collateral, in a fusion of both Saudi and Hollywood's aesthetics.

Event Logo

A NEW DAWN FOR FILMMAKING IN THE KINGDOM

As Saudi Film Days is an annual event created to share the film work of Saudi Arabia's citizens with the rest of the world, using a geographical icon to help other nations quickly identify them was important. The epic sand dunes paid tribute to the early origins of the Kingdom. From these deserts, vast cities were built, and now a new film industry will be carved out of this land. The sun rising above the dunes symbolize what we coined as, "a new dawn for filmmaking rising in the Kingdom." Our custom font was inspired by the original Saudi emblem which uses swords. These weapons once used in battle, now are used in creativity. Lastly, the golden color symbolizes the solid wealth of talent the Kingdom has to offer in the to the international film and entertainment industry. All together, we acknowledge history while also looking to the future.

BRAND STYLE GUIDE

Cinematic Opener

Saudi Film Days was to showcase two main screening events, a private screening at Paramount Studios and a public screening at the Ace Theater. The client desired a cinematic title opener that was both artistic and bold. We were able to capture this by producing original scoring, sound design and vocals that told the story of the logo as it came together visually.

Booklet

DESIGN & PRINT PRODUCTION

To commemorate this historical event in the film community, our client wanted to offer a high quality informative booklet that featured the 12 Saudi Directors making their film debuts in Hollywood. The booklet also shared the insightful opinions of each of the directors regarding key questions on the newly developing industry in their community. The book itself was softbound with quality satin paper, gold foil stamp on the cover, as well as a limited print for VIP guests, embellished with hand-painted gold edges.

Ads

We created several collections of digital and print ads which were used for Google and social media ads, various websites and blogs, and industry publications like the Hollywood Reporter. As a support to the PR agency, Rogers & Cowan, we also served as additional copy writing editors to help set the voice in press releases.

Website

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

With limited time, we designed and developed a website for Saudi Film Days. It's focus was to promote the event, collect contacts from email submissions, reserve tickets, share film trailers and information about each of the directors making their Hollywood debut.

The client wanted the website active as soon as possible but was also experiencing delays on their end receiving the images and information we needed to complete the site. We resolved this by designing branded placeholders so that the site could be live and under construction at the same time to meet their needs.

Event Design

TRADITIONAL ARAB HOSPITALITY FOR A HOLLYWOOD GUESTLIST

It was important to our key messaging that the event properly represent the traditions and culture of Saudi Arabia, but not in any stereotypical ways that have been misrepresented in the past within the entertainment industry. We made sure that all of our ideas were supported by proper research and reason and inspired by creative elements of the Kingdom such as geometric patterns, lighting, calligraphy, and rich textures and fabrics. However, to also remain contemporary and fuse cinema and Hollywood into the theme, we also added elements from "Old Hollywood" - from the art deco era, trending in fashion and decor, and commonly used for industry events.