BY Armin

Hello Kitty

With the growing enterprises of film festivals around the world it’s becoming increasingly important for each to convey their own attitude through their branding and front-runners like The Sundance Film Festival or the Tribeca Film Festival have really strong design executions — and in the case of the big daddy of all film festivals, Cannes, the name alone does all the work, even with paltry design. The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running since 1972 and handing prizes since 1995 is one of the top festivals but, unfortunately, you might never know that from their old logo.

Designed by one of my favorite designer/illustrators, Max Kisman, the old logo was a little too quirky in its typography and too cartoony in the depiction of the festival’s tiger mascot. The new logo and identity, designed by Rotterdam based 75b, is the complete opposite. And I really like it. Typography aside, which I think is perfectly neutral, the tiger icon is downright lovely. The uniformity of the line width and simplicity of the elements makes for a very fetching, memorable and unique identity. You can see more images of the black-and-white identity at play here.

This is an old rebrand, launched in October of 2008 — you can read the original press release here — but I thought it was very well worth it to post even if it’s just slightly old.

Thanks to Lena Kuppens for the tip.

\n\nWith the growing enterprises of film festivals around the world it's becoming increasingly important for each to convey their own attitude through their branding and front-runners like The Sundance Film Festival or the Tribeca Film Festival have really strong design executions — and in the case of the big daddy of all film festivals, Cannes, the name alone does all the work, even with paltry design. The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running since 1972 and handing prizes since 1995 is one of the top festivals but, unfortunately, you might never know that from their old logo.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners