Toronto Comic Arts (TCAF) Program Guide
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is an annual celebration of comics, graphic novels, and independent art held in Toronto. TCAF brings together creators from around the world for panels, workshops, signings, and a large exhibitor marketplace featuring indie artists, small presses, and graphic novel publishers.
The Brief
I was tasked with designing the program guide for the festival, a complex document containing a wide range of information that needed to be presented clearly and intuitively. The design needed to reflect and expand on the visual feel of the official poster, which was quite dark and gothic. Past posters had been colourful and playful, so for my design I would have to create a new colour palette and visual language from scratch.
Typography
The cover of the guide would be the TCAF poster, with the addition of the venue, date etc. The typography had to fit seamlessly with the poster, especially on the cover but also throughout the guide. I did some research and used fonts and typographic conventions characteristic of the Victorian era, so that the text echoes the feel of the event’s visual identity. I also incorporated typographic ornaments throughout the guide that echoed the poster’s antique illustration style and use of mystical symbols.
Colour
Because the poster used a limited and muted color palette, I developed a complementary palette that worked with that aesthetic. The colours were chosen to support the poster’s antique feel while ensuring that elements within the guide that needed to be differentiated remained distinct.
Usability
I wanted to make the guide as easy to use as possible, and part of that was making it easy to flip to the correct day of the festival. To achieve this I added tabs on the page edges labeled with the corresponding dates, which reduced the amount of searching within the booklet for attendees. I also created simple, easy to read maps to help attendees find all the locations involved in the festival.
