European Film Festival
The project included the design of the festival’s core print collateral: the main event poster, festival booklet, programme schedule, and supporting promotional materials used across cinema spaces and public installations. The system needed to be adaptable across formats while remaining visually strong, recognizable, and representative of both VAMDAS Cinema and the European Film Festival.
The European Film Festival is an annual cultural event that brings together films from across Europe and presents them to Ethiopian audiences through screenings, discussions, and public engagement. Hosted at VAMDAS Entertainment Movie Theatre in Addis Ababa, the festival’s 2018 edition creates a space for cultural exchange by showcasing stories from different countries, perspectives, and cinematic traditions. It introduces audiences to contemporary and classic European cinema while strengthening artistic dialogue between Europe and Ethiopia.
The visual concept was built around abstraction and symbolism rather than literal cinematic references. The striped graphic language represents both the diversity of European national flags and “Seba Dereja,” a historically significant urban pattern associated with Addis Ababa. These linear forms also suggest the movement of light across a cinema screen, referencing projection, framing, and the experience of watching film.
The bold diagonal composition creates visual tension and movement, allowing the photography to feel framed rather than simply placed. The bright pink umbrella image was selected as a strong visual anchor—unexpected, memorable, and human—contrasting against the strict black-and-white geometry of the layout. This balance between structure and spontaneity reflects the festival itself: formal in institution, but emotional and personal in experience.
Typography was kept direct and modern, using a strong grid-based system influenced by European editorial design. This allowed the publication to remain clear, functional, and highly adaptable across posters, brochures, and programme spreads while maintaining a unified identity.
The final result was a publication and campaign system designed to make the European Film Festival into something instantly recognizable within the city and memorable beyond the event itself.
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