VQFF Identity

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) is Vancouver’s second largest film festival, and Western Canada’s largest queer arts event. Dissatisfied with the sites built for the previous annual festivals, the festival organisers asked Creative B’stro to completely redesign and rebrand the VQFF. Requesting an increase in interactivity on the site and a bit more of a visual punch, the organisers of the Queer Film Fest (a group called the Out on Screen Society) hoped their redesign would increase attendance by 10%.

The effects of Creative B’stro’s redesign far exceeded this goal, and attendance experienced a whopping increase: total audience numbers jumped more than 25% from the previous year. Festival passes sold out — a first in the Festival’s history. The success of our new website and rebranding efforts can be attributed to its sexy design and user-focused features, which include date-based navigation, the ability to create and print a festival calendar, and the added bonus of inviting a date — a first-of-its-kind feature for film festival websites.

The Out on Screen Society was so happy with our work in 2008 that when it came time to design marketing collateral for the 2009 festival they knew right where to turn. And this time, they asked us to do even more—this time, we created the film fest’s entire advertising campaign. From the official event poster, TV commercial and parade float to the website refresh and guerilla marketing campaign (satisfyyourcravings.ca), we were thrilled to be able to support the Queer Film Fest to such a great degree.

The numbers:

12,885: the number of attendees at the 2009 film fest
53: the percentage that festival attendance has increased in the past 3 years
1,500: the number of YouTube views our TV commercial received in the first few weeks since its debut
0: the number of popsicles harmed in the making of our marketing collateral