Intersect Film Festival
Comprehensive branding for a mock film festival, focusing on creating a brand identity and event materials while visually representing themes of intersectionality and inclusion.
Role
Brand Designer
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Docs, Behance, Dribble.
Timeline
5 weeks (2025)
Project Type
Concept Brand Design and Festival
Tools
Overview
The Intersect Film Festival is a mock event centered around social impact entertainment. The festival highlights films that bring awareness to overlooked issues, such as environmental justice, racial justice, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, using film as a medium for education and change. Spanning four days, the festival features a curated selection of documentaries and narrative films that each focus on each of the four topics.
While each day highlights a distinct social cause, the core focus is on intersectionality. The idea is that these issues are not isolated, but interconnected in nature, creating overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The programming encourages viewers to recognize how systems of inequality overlap across politics, identity, environment, and culture.
This project explores how a visual identity system can reflect the concept of intersectionality while remaining clear, engaging and across festival touchpoints.
The Problem
Designing for a social impact film festival begs the question: how do you communicate complex, heavy topics in a way that is both engaging and accessible? I did not want the festival to feel overwhelmingly serious or disconnected from the depth of the content.
The challenge with Intersect was:
Representing multiple social issues within one cohesive visual system
Communicating the idea of intersectionality in a clear, immediate way
Balancing serious subject matter with an inviting and approachable tone
Creating a system that could scale across multiple touchpoints without losing meaning
Without a thoughtful approach, the identity risked feeling fragmented or failing to fully reflect the interconnected nature of these issues. The audience risked feeling disconnected when they needed to be drawn in to focus on Intersect’s mission.
The Objective:
To design a visual identity that communicates the interconnected nature of social issues while remaining engaging and cohesive. The identity system should be able to work across different promotional and informational materials while visually representing intersectionality in a clear and meaningful way.
The Brand
Logo Icon
The icon is meant to represent crossing paths. They meet at different “intersections,” representing how social issues are not independent of one another but cross all the time. These two lines are a simple yet powerful way to communicate the idea of intersectionality.
Typography
I chose “Gotham” as my primary typeface in this project. This modern and clean sans-serif helps communicate Intersect’s progress-oriented goals for the future.
Color Palette
The color palette for Intersect features a light blue and brown. The blue represents openness, and a sense of possibility while the brown introduces a sense of sustainability and humanity. Together, these colors create a visual contrast that mirrors the festival’s core concept of growth, inclusion, and a better tomorrow.
Graphic Elements
Graphic elements for Intersect’s branding were represented in two distinct styles. One with dynamic, organic lines, the other with structured, overlapping rectangles with a lowered opacity.
Like the logo icon, the organic lines are meant to represent the fluidity of social issues and how they intersect in a number of different places. It also stands to represent the complexity of human experience.
Inspired by designer Josef Alber’s Interaction of Color, the transparent rectangles are meant to represent how different social issues build upon one another, creating multiple layers of oppression. Their structured nature stands of the policies in place that perpetuate these social issues.
Together these graphic elements help to represent the full idea of intersectionality and social issues affect different kinds of people.
Festival Program
Serving as an informational touchpoint, the Festival Program is a guest’s go-to spot for any information regarding Intersect. The outside of the pamphlet showcases important information such as the schedule, awards, and different resources like help lines and charities. The inside shows information about the films being shown at the festival.
It was important to make this information quickly and easily accessible. Information on the outside is separated by blocks of color so readers can easily differentiate between information, avoiding confusion. On the inside, all films have descriptions and pictures as well as tags explaining the contents of the film so readers can easily scan and decide what they may be interested in.
Merchandise
Whether it is handed out for free or bought at a gift shop, merchandise serves as another touchpoint of the brand. It can be used to garner interest and build awareness outside of the festival. Wearing a t-shirt with the logo or carrying around a water bottle with Intersect’s branding can make others aware of the film festival who may not have otherwise heard of it. Expanding this collection into something more fun would be something I’d love to do if I had more time on this project, but for now, designs were kept simple to maximize recognizability.
Event Signage & Badges
Event signage and badges are important informational touchpoints during the festival itself. These elements help people find their way and help to identify staff, filmmakers, and other important people This allows for everyday operations to run smoothly.
The signs utilize both graphic element styles and break the frame, creating a more dynamic and eye-catching design.
Badges are built for quick and easy identification while adhering to the brand’s identity.
Reflecting
This project pushed me to think critically about how social causes can be addressed from a design thinking perspective. It allowed me to use design as a tool for communicating complex, real-world issues. Focusing on the central idea of intersectionality allowed me to create a system that balances both structure and fluidity, reflecting systems and human experiences.
Through this process, I strengthened my ability to:
Translate abstract ideas into visual systems
Design strategically, with intention and meaning behind every decision
Create flexible identities that scale across multiple touchpoints
Balance emotional weight with accessibility and clarity
I was driven to be more thoughtful about how design can influence the way people engage with important topics. Rather than overwhelming the viewer, the goal was to encourage curiosity, reflection and learning.
Intersect Film Festival strengthened by ability to use branding as a tool for storytelling, communication, and raising awareness.