Tallgrass Never Looked So Good

When you have a memorable, placemaking name like Tallgrass and almost two decades of equity in your brand, you embrace it. This year the Tallgrass Film Association walked away from the TFF logo it had been using for the festival and returned to its roots.

Greteman Group revisited the association’s original, classic wordmark, updating the font and evolving the grass icon while remaining loyal to the distinctive name and its instant recognition. The creation of graphic standards, which the association had never had, serve to boost consistency and streamline efforts, saving this resource-strapped organization both time and money.

Setting the Stage

The Sundance and Tribeca film festivals are bigger, but Tallgrass just boosted its star power. New creative leverages a brightly colored film reel against a field of black, evoking the feeling of a dark theater. The agency set the creative in motion with colors filling the screen before the reel rolls out of view. “Tallgrass” and the “Stubbornly Independent” tagline move in and take center stage before revealing the dates of the now-virtual fest, which expanded from the usual five days to 10: October 16-25. Graphic applications include everything from T-shirts to TALLPasses.

This is How You Fest

The new website launched in July, replacing and combining two previous sites, one for the association and the other for the festival. Having everything at TallgrassFilm.org boosts SEO and provides a better user experience.

“As more films continue to be released in a digital world, our website will be integral in creating new opportunities for our organization,” says Nike Pope, Tallgrass Film Association director of programming. “In the coming months, we look forward to opening the ‘Tallgrass vault’ to bring patrons an online catalog of past festival favorites as well as new content from around the world.”

The addition of a newsroom helps the fest’s many audiences stay informed. Straightforward navigation makes it easier than ever to buy passes, donate, volunteer and submit films. As beautiful as the new site will be, Tallgrass team members and volunteers are perhaps most excited about the new content management system and website style guide. They can make updates themselves, something that was impossible before with its proprietary, hard-coded site. With the festival going virtual, it’s more important than ever to have a nimble way to keep things current and festivalgoers informed.

“It’s awesome to have a new website, especially this year as we pivot to hosting our festival virtually,” says Gray Rodriguez, Tallgrass Film Association director of marketing. “We’re ecstatic to have a sleek and easy to navigate place to direct our audiences, attract new supporters, and get everyone as excited about our online festival as we are!”