King Coal
The journey of a coal miner’s daughter
Industry
- Film
Year
Services
- Brand Identity
- Graphic Design
- Posters
- Title Credits
Brief
King Coal is a documentary film about the cultural roots of the coal mining industry told through the eye’s of a miner’s young daughter.Debuting at the 2023 Sundance Festival the film’s academy award-nominated production company Cottage M tasked us with creating a brand identity and poster design for the film along with merch collateral and digital assets.
Finding
Exploring the region’s dreams and myths filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon takes viewers on a cinematic journey through the past present and future of Appalachia. Equal parts pain and beauty with a fascinating collage of archival footage and present-day moments our first goal was to fully understand the film’s message to ensure it came across in our work. In doing this we chose a bold logo as big as the coal mining industry itself looming over the film’s heroine. For colors we chose contrasting pastel colors that evoked the beauty of the setting and mystic feel of the film’s narrative. And for fonts we chose VTC Martin Regular and Caslon Ionic Medium to represent the contrasting worlds of the mining industry along with the magic of Appalachian nature and geography. Ultimately we knew we had to create something that could express all of these complex subjects in a poetic clear way and a striking memorable image.
