In Lieu of Flowers short film
Film titles, credits, and pitch deck
Project description
In Lieu of Flowers is my friend Stacey Torkelson’s first film—the first of many, I’m sure! She wrote and directed this short about two teenage friends in Satellite Beach, FL, in the aftermath of their friend’s sudden passing. It’s a story of girlhood, grief, forgiveness, and love. (Check out their Instagram here!)
I was pulled in as a graphic designer, first creating the visuals for their pitch deck and then designing the film title and credits. I focused on two main things: capturing the nostalgic, girly, and warm tone of the film, and conveying large amounts of textual information.
Film credits & titles
Title sketches
Through a few rounds of sketching and feedback, we narrowed down the look for the film titles, eventually landing on a simple mix of an elegant, open sans serif and a handwritten (literally—that’s my handwriting!) cursive.
From there, we had a clear typographic language to work from. I used this to finalize titles as well as major credits:
Endcards (aka credits)
I created a grid and explored a few different styles for end credits. With Stacey’s feedback, we nailed down a 2-column style for the credits, and we kept the layouts relatively flexible. Each endcard looks slightly different, depending on the content.
The endcards also include hand-drawn illustrations that were made to look like stickers. These depicted items/places from the film, as well as other small objects that reminded me of my own teenage girlhood.
Pitch deck
Stacey and the film’s producer, Eliana, provided me with the key information that they planned to present for fundraising, casting, and pitching the film. My job was to tell the film’s story visually, without sacrificing professionalism or clarity of information.
I took inspiration from their own reference photos to select typefaces, assign colors, and create graphic assets that give the whole pitch deck a nostalgic, scrapbook feel.
