DC Environmental Film Festival

DC Environmental Film Festival

UI / UX

Branding

Growth Marketing

DCEFF is a film festival providing a community for movie lovers and environmental activists. We have provided design services for the festival since 2016, but in 2021 we teamed up to face a new challenge: modernizing their brand, marketing, and web experience for a post-covid, digital-first age.

ROLE

UX and web design, brand design, growth marketing, creative direction

TEAM

Ian Taylor (creative director, product designer), Max Matson (copywriter, marketing strategist), and a network of engineers, editors and marketers.

TIMELINE

Nov 2016 - July 2022
Rebrand, web, growth:
Nov 2021 - Nov 2022

DCEFF is a non-profit organization with a seasonal festival, and a year round web streaming service.

The festival typically takes place at dozens of venues in downtown DC each spring. In the wake of covid, the festival transitioned to a hybrid in-person and online event for its 30th anniversary festival with the help of the third party app Eventive.

Watch Now is an online archive of past festival films that users can stream directly on dceff.org, or be connected to wherever the film is currently available.

The underlying goal of the Apollo team’s brand, UX and marketing efforts was to address the needs of DCEFF’s three distinct audiences:

Film lovers

Documentary lovers, festival goers, and earth enthusiasts who want to attend events with likeminded people.

Filmmakers

The adventurous directors, producers and videographers who submit their films to be shared with a large audience.

Sponsors

Strategic partners and donors who's generous support is the lifeblood of this nonprofit.

We did this through three core services:

Branding

Style Guide:

Logos
Color system
Type styles
branded language
imagery guidelines
icons and graphic assets

UI / UX

Industry research
journey mapping
wireframing
mobile-first web redesign
Project management
Watch Now streaming interface solution
filmmaker and award archives meta-data integration with UI

Growth Marketing

Auidence analysis
Social and newsletter content creation and management
robust iOS-proof data collection architecture
Ad strategy and management
Reinstatement & management of $10K/month nonprofit Google Ads grant

The project kicked off with a comprehensive rebrand. We introduced a design system that would bring clarity and consistency to their web experience and public messaging across all communication channels.

Then we were asked to fully reimagine and revitalize their web ecosystem to be a digital-first, mobile-centric experience.

“The Apollo team was brought on board leading up to our milestone 30th Anniversary Film Festival. Over our year working together, they have provided us with clear and dynamic brand guidelines, a web design we are proud of, invaluable insights into our audience, and a variety of supporting materials to help better communicate our story to potential partners and sponsors. Their work has positioned us much better to face the years ahead.”

—

Jacob Crawford

Director of Communications, DCEFF

Apollo Creative™

Apollo Creative™