Human After All brands Vimeo’s break out of browsers, onto the big screen

Short films are not something we often get the luxury to experience, in all their glory, on the big screen. Usually the most creative experiments in movie making, filled with the biggest ideas and made with the smallest budgets, they are a magical format that floods the video sharing platform, Vimeo. With audiences traditionally encountering shorts on the small screens of phones and laptops, the platform’s latest project, the Vimeo Staff Picks Screening Series, sets out to switch this up through a series of events across the US that bring Vimeo’s shorts to the big screen. A “badge of honour for any budding filmmaker” in the line-up and a “feast for cinephiles” attending, these screenings aim to celebrate the cream of the crop of the platform’s shorts.

Vimeo collaborated with design agency Human After All to create a visual identity for each event and each set of films on show, which rolls out across a mix of digital touchpoints and in-person applications, bespoke to each of the project’s screenings. Paul Willoughby, co-founder and executive creative director of Human After All, explains that when starting out the project, the agency were excited by how many amazing filmmakers “initially appeared in the Vimeo Staff Picks series early in their careers”. This combined with the fact that “short films often create spaces where unique creative vision thrives”, made the team think about the ripple effect of the shorts that come out of Staff Picks.

Each of the events is a celebration of multiple shorts, so the agency’s biggest creative challenge was “to celebrate all the filmmakers in one compelling visual, rather than spotlighting just one”, through the project’s identity. The team developed a visual motif of a circular ripple of cinema that centres the Staff Picks badge. Human After All’s promo artwork for the project “builds on the the idea of short film as the epicentre of creativity in cinema” with layered circles of “raw, lo-fi” stills. The design choice also aims to reflect “how shorts are best consumed — in batches that drive our imagination in multiple directions, offering quick, fleeting glimpses of the human experience, ranging from the absurd to the profoundly touching”, explains Paul.

The circular graphic system extends to curves of type and turning transitions between different clips and stills in order to create a “fluid feel” that mirrors Vimeo’s curation of a broad range of shorts. Switching between “gentle, undulating movements for more contemplative programs” and “rapid, energetic transitions for action-filled or experimental works” shares Paul, the identity has the flexibility to focus on different aspects of an eclectic line up. The visual concept aims to create an “immersive experience” for big screen and vertical mobile displays alike, to celebrate “Vimeo’s unwavering commitment to short film” and the excitement at “the wide diversity and creativity of films on display”.

For more information on the upcoming 2024 screenings, you can check out the dedicated Staff Picks Events site.