INTRODUCTION
This project documents my ten-week process developing a visual system for the University of Washington’s “Altitude Film Festival”—a three-day event celebrating the interplay between music and cinema. The festival spotlights local musicians and filmmakers through creative, low-budget screenings and performances, offering a look into how a cohesive festival campaign comes together.
Unique Selling Point: The Festival will host film making and musical talent from across the PNW, giving attendees the ability to network with them through various events.
Core Value Proposition: Altitude Film Festival will showcase movies and short films that have perfected the synchrony of music and film, as well as give attendees the option of learning more about the film making process through various workshops and industry panels
RESEARCH
Local Sightings Film Festival: This is a local Seattle film festival presented by Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum and is primarily centered around showcasing the work of regional artists. The film festival features a list of curated short films and feature films. I thought that the 2024 edition of the festival’s artwork was very unique, vibrant, and sort of organized chaos.
Phoenix Film Festival: A nationally recognized film festival, Phoenix Film is a Spring festival that shows upcoming movie releases from large film studios. The festival attracts diverse crowds and is advertised for anyone to be able to come watch movies, independent of background, knowledge, or upbringing.
Krakow Film Music Festival: The film music festival made a name for itself with its film showcases and live music, creating a unique sensory atmosphere for viewers. The festival hosts eminent ensembles and outstanding conductors, that are elevated by the concert’s high value production and sound innovations. Although the festival is located in Poland, it is renowned around Europe as a whole, even attracting people from all over the world.
PERSONAS
Persona 1: Jeremiah
Age: 27
Title: Stylist
Jeremiah is an independent stylist and works with a lot of celebrities along the west coast, originally from Los Angeles, Jeremiah hopes to bring some LA culture to the PNW. He loves going to film and music festivals when he has free time.
Persona 2: Vanessa
Age: 21
Title: Student
Vanessa is a student at the University of Washington. She is an avid festival goer and she loves watching high production movies with her family and friends.
Persona 3: Jeffrey
Age: 23
Title: Musician
Jeffrey is a local musician who appreciates art as a whole. He loves going to music festivals but is open to attending his first film festival.
These personas were chosen with the intent to describe the average young festival attendee and study how their personal needs should be met in order to attract them as customers to the Altitude Film Festival.
A common pattern across these personas is that they all value cost effectiveness when it comes to their decision making, meaning that I had to ensure that the ticket price has to reflect the experience. Since the festival will be organized by college students with their own financial burdens, I decided to adjust the price, making it more affordable for students and young adults.
An insight that I gathered from this research is that a lot of people have not been to a film festival before, so advertising and marketing needs to be concise and informative.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
I selected Vanessa as the persona for this customer journey because she best reflects the core audience for this festival. Since the event is targeted toward UW college students, her background and interests align closely with the typical festival attendee.
While building out the journey table, I noticed that college students strongly value shared experiences. Attending events with friends emerged as a key motivator, making companionship an important factor to consider in the design and messaging.
Another takeaway from this process was the role of communication and social media. Festival updates don’t just attract interest—they help sustain excitement in the weeks and days leading up to the event, making consistent outreach essential
BRAND IDENTITY
WORDMARK
The name “Altitude” refers to an object’s height relative to ground level, and I chose it because altitude subtly shapes how we perceive both sound and visuals. It reflects the festival’s focus on the interplay between these two art forms.
For the wordmark, I selected Sonsie One, a script typeface that conveys sophistication, ingenuity, and elegance—qualities that mirror the harmony between motion and sound. Its oversized ascenders and descenders introduce a sense of serenity, supporting the festival’s authentic, grounded tone. The rounded terminals further enhance the softness and refined character of the visual identity.
MOOD BOARD
These images inspired my initial designs because they exemplified certain elements of color combination, information organization, creativity, or distinctiveness. Fast Trax 3, Hendrix, and Pulp fiction all included color schemes that appealed to me and had an interesting use of perspective. 454 is where I drew inspirational for my festival colors as I was a big fan of how the colors complimented each other on the off-white canvas. The rolling hills and the sunset were both my initial inspirations when trying to find a color scheme to my festival as I wanted to represent “Altitude” through a depiction of hills and a vibrant sunset.
COLORS
I aimed to evoke a sense of nostalgia, playfulness, and quiet confidence. To achieve this, I chose a triadic color palette featuring muted green, soft blue, and gentle pink. By slightly lowering the saturation of traditionally vibrant hues, the palette creates a more vintage, understated look that aligns with the tone of the festival’s visual identity.
TYPOGRAPHY
I paired these two typefaces because their organic shapes and expressive styling complement each other well. Playfair Display supports Sonsie One with its thinner stems and improved readability at smaller sizes, while still sharing a similar artistic quality. Sonsie One brings a vintage, playful charm through its open apertures and exaggerated stroke endings, whereas Playfair Display offers a more refined contrast with its angular forms, sharper serifs, and straighter verticals. Together, they balance personality and sophistication, reinforcing the lively, nostalgic aesthetic of the festival’s visual identity.
POSTER
CONCEPT DRAFTS
FINAL POSTER DESIGN
I selected Sonsie One as my primary typeface and Playfair Display as the secondary, choosing both from Google Fonts for their complementary character and visual balance.
The hierarchy in my poster is shaped by three elements: posture, weight, and size. Posture allowed me to introduce playful slanted elements while maintaining clear legibility. Weight and size were used to emphasize information that needed to stand out from a distance. The title, dates, and location are intentionally oversized to signal their importance and draw immediate attention.
MAP & EVENT NAVIGATION
DRAFTS
FINAL DESIGN
I aimed to make navigation around the festival site intuitive while still incorporating the event’s distinctive colors and visual forms. Suzallo and Odegaard were highlighted as key landmarks to help visitors easily recognize the location when searching on Google Maps. I placed informational banners at the main entrances to the Quad, where most foot traffic naturally flows. The map keys sit on a pink background to contrast with surrounding elements, ensuring they stand out and are easy to locate at a glance.
SIGNAGE
DESIGN
DISPLAY
My goal with the signage was to clearly communicate which events were happening at each festival location. I designed a freestanding primary sign, shown on the right, so it would naturally catch people’s attention as they approached the building. The visual style was inspired by an image on my mood board featuring rolling hills and a purple–pink sunset. I translated that atmosphere into the signage through layered green hills that create a subtle 3D effect. Text hierarchy helps emphasize the most important information—such as the location and the day’s featured showcase—making the sign both engaging and easy to read.
WIREFRAMES
UI STYLE TILE
USER INTERFACE FRAMES
Design Features
I carried over several key elements from my poster into the mobile interface, including shapes, color palette, typography, and a consistent grid system that keeps all content and graphics aligned. I also introduced playful interactive components, such as cloud-shaped buttons and saved-bookmark visual elements.
Testing Feedback
Avoid restricting the layout to square or rectangular frames
Add more detail to the wireframes, including color and text
In response to this feedback, I experimented with more free-flowing frame structures while still maintaining clear organization. My goal was to remain faithful to the visual language of my poster design while introducing more flexible spacing and variation between frames.
MOBILE INTERFACE
I aimed for the mobile interface to reflect the same design principles as the poster and signage, so I incorporated rounded, flowing shapes throughout the frames and buttons. When designing the app’s functionality, I focused on intuitive navigation and implemented a side navigation bar that allows users to access any main page at any time.
I chose to tuck the navigation bar into the header so the layout could more easily scale to desktop or tablet formats if needed. This choice also supports a cleaner, more minimal overall appearance for the app.