Partway through filming a documentary for HBO, the Oscar-nominated film company Chain Camera approached us to help re-name and re-invent their brand for a wider Hollywood audience. In a stroke of brilliance, Amy Ziering came up with the name "Jane Doe" after hundreds of boxes of paper were delivered to their production house.
After numerous meetings with their team of talented filmmakers, we settled on the motif of light & shadow to reflect the dynamic nature and fluid feeling of how justice might be portrayed on-screen. At its core, film itself is a dark curl of material that, when exposed to light, becomes an image. We felt this creative direction appropriate to give them a range of solution sets for very complex issues plaguing society at large.
After interviewing the staff and several filmmakers close to the production house, we decided that the strategy would emphasis how the films were shot, focusing on their unique style of grassroots documentary filmmaking.
How that sounds: "We shine a light into the cracks and crevasses of society, so often trampled over in the pursuit of profit, prejudice, or power."
Working with the core concept of light & shadow made room for plenty of artistic expression within the brand. By harnessing bold type moves, inspired by Paula Scher's work on the Public Theater, we crafted a thoroughly unique identity that played with the duality of negative and positive space.