Hundreds of films, both feature-length and short, will play during the SXSW Film Festival’s nine-day run. That’s a lot of noise. But a standout poster design will do a lot to distinguish a film from the pack, and no less than seven filmmakers have enlisted Austin graphic designer Yen Tan’s services to help their pictures pop.
Tan was a filmmaker first (he goes into production on his next feature, Pit Stop, this spring); he fell into poster design out of necessity, he explained to the Chronicle’s Josh Rosenblatt in a February profile.
“When my films got into festivals and I needed artwork designed, I did it myself because I had to,” Tan said. “I learned how to do it over time, completely self-taught. I didn’t go to design school. I didn’t become a graphic designer in the way most people did. So my approach to it was always as a filmmaker. It’s very intuitive.”
Among the SXSW films sporting Yen Tan poster design are the Narrative Competition film Gayby (featuring the illustration work of Austin artist Nick Derington) and Emerging Visions selections Sunset Stories and Wolf. Click on the picture to right for a full gallery.
This article appears in March 9 • 2012.
