The San Francisco Jazz Festival began in 1983 as a two-day music event called Jazz in the City Festival. 35 years later, SFJAZZ was seeking artwork that would increase interest in, and reflect the diversity of, a festival now promoting 43 shows over 13 days in multiple venues.

As senior designer for SFJAZZ, I led brainstorms with the marketing team which resulted in our collaborating with local artist Zio Ziegler. Ziegler is known for his intricately patterned paintings and large-scale murals in cities worldwide. We felt his work both reflected the diversity of the Festival, and was uniquely San Franciscan. It also provided SFJAZZ an opportunity to support a local artist, while increasing media exposure for both parties.

Once the artwork was selected, my initial challenge was to create a strong logo treatment for the Festival that also complimented Ziegler’s work. Incorporating Ziegler’s artwork when the entire piece could not be shown, was another concern. In the end, patterns from Ziegler’s artwork were used to create borders that unified our messaging for the Festival in digital executions. Elements of this campaign included a program book, rack brochure, outdoor banners, pole banners, video screens, Facebook carousels, social media assets, print ads.