Sundance Film Festival 2018
Senior Environmental Designer.
Last winter…
I left my job in New York to join the marketing team as the Sr. Environmental designer for the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
Our primary responsibility as the Enviro. team was to transform Park City into the festival itself, branding the environment with the year’s corresponding festival theme with large-format environmental design.
“The power of storytelling rests in the layered relationship between storyteller and audience. When a storyteller exudes a distinctively formed vision, the audience is emboldened to engage with that vision through the prism of their life experiences. The result is, on one hand, a shared experience among disparate perspectives. But it is also a vibrant moment allowing for a specific vision to exist in the world in infinite and unexpected ways.
The 2018 Sundance Film Festival identity celebrates and explores this truth – that audiences are integral to every story. In this way, it is also a testament to the belief that not only is it ok to feel anything at any moment, but that it is a unifying part of the human experience. When you encounter terms such as "obsession," "dreaming," and "revel," and pairings like "unbearable joy" and "untidy truth," we hope they spark a thought, a feeling, and ultimately a story. As we release this year's stories into the world, we look forward to the ways in which they will bend and evolve as you experience them.”
-Nate von Zumwalt
The process of designing the graphics for 34 venues across Park City and Salt Lake City took careful preparation. Our process consisted of taking measurements and photographs, creating mockups of our design concepts, receiving approval from way too many cooks in the kitchen, creating the print-ready files for execution, and compiling a full wrap report of sizes and locations of all designs.
Sr. Environmental Designer - John Demetres
Jr. Environmental Designer - Esther Ly
Environmental Production Coordinator - Ashley Abdenour
Photographs courtesy of Willis Schaefer and John Demetres