As the major sponsor of the Three Rivers Film Festival and the Cleveland International Film Festival for a number of years, Dollar Bank chose to create an animated sponsorship trailer to be shown at each festival.

The PMI team approached the project as if we were creating an opening title sequence for a movie. The inspiration came from one of the masters of this somewhat-underappreciated genre, Saul Bass. He brought the world of design to the film industry in the 1950’s by bringing movie poster designs to life in opening title sequences, and movie trailers. During his 40-year career, he worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.

For our design, simplicity was key. We used two main colors, based on Dollar Bank branding, and a third one for the type treatment. Add a few bars traveling across the screen creating different conceptual compositions and we were set.

Dollar Bank liked the final products so much, they have decided to repurpose the trailers for television.

Please take a look at this animated piece that is our homage to Saul Bass and Dollar Bank with a cinematographic flavor. This piece was designed by Jose Muniain, animated by Kevin Kulesa with sound design by Shawn Jackson.