All That Jazz!

jazz festival graphic design Events cape town campaign

I was tasked with the amazing opportunity to help relaunch one of Cape Town's most iconic events, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. After a 4 year COVID induced hiatus, the festival was ready to make a return to the city's annual event calendar.

The Brief:

1. Bold & Vibrant but not over the top 2. African but with a global appeal

3. Target a younger audience yet not forget about the seasoned jazz veterans.

As can be seen from the above assets, I chose to take it back to basics and keep design elements to a minimum. I didn't want the design to overpower or overwhelm the audience and because this was a relaunch and we were expecting to connect with a new audience, I wanted the festival details, the feeling of jazz (instruments) and the artists to be front and centre as the focal point across the communication touch-points. Basic, well layed-out and balanced. All this while still trying to answer the brief of being VIBRANT, AFRICAN and YOUNGER. See how it all came together below.

The campaign kicked off with some generic messaging which highlighted the dates, venue,

ticket sales and First Artist Announcement. In order to reach the desired audience, there was a strong focus on social media platforms and these were spread across Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram as well as a number of print publications.

Because 'bums in seats' is needed for any successful event, the campaign then went on to push the VIP Hospitality packages to the general public as well as targeted communication to specific stakeholders and corporates. Again these were communicated across social media platforms

as well as a digital brochure which was distributed via email.

The most exciting part of the campaign tended to be the various Artist Announcements,

which saw great audience interaction and built the hype and excitement with each new artist

being announced. As mentioned, I wanted the artist to be the focal point and not be dominated

by 'overly designed' graphics. Each artist obviously had very different publicity packs/shots, so it was tricky trying to make them all look like one set of consistent photographs. These are just some of my favourites which I mixed between the cooler and warmer colour palettes.

The FREE Concert is definitely a major highlight for Capetonians whether they are lovers of Jazz

or not. I used the event specific colour palette for this set of communication which again spanned across social media platforms, print publications, printed flyers as well as Out of Home media consisting of digital billboards and street pole posters.

The Master Class is another FREE offering during the festival and is aimed at young up and coming musicians or students wanting to break into the industry and consists of talks and workshops from a select number of artists and other players within the music industry. I used the second event specific colour palette for these assets which consisted of social media posts and digital screens

at the venue.

Digital Billboards

Out of Home

The week leading up to the event, we launched generic Digital Billboards which flighted in locations across Johannesburg and Cape Town and these were strategically aligned with

"pay-day" and any "last-minute-shoppers" in mind.

Welcome Banners

Venue Branding

The stage was set and we were ready to welcome festinos to experience this much anticipated relaunch of this beloved festival. I did some branding throughout the venue which consisted of

stage backdrops, banners, pillar wraps, ticket and merchandise booths

as well as a number of digital screens.