FRANCIS KLAESS
VISUAL COMMUNICATION / GRAPHIC DESIGN
PROCESS
GLASS WORKS
APP/EXHIBITION
DARK HORROR 
FILM FESTIVAL
DARK HORROR FILM FESTIVAL
Case Study: The typical horror movie fan usually is well schooled in current cinema of this genre. Slasher  gross-out and terror films top the list of audience and box office. An occasional trip to the 1960's and 1970's Grind House movies are viewed and well received but don't stay top-of-mind with the fan. The original scary movies that harken back to the silent era are almost never heard of yet remain largely as influencer touch-points for the modern day horror movie maker. The Dark Horror Film Festival (A Hypothetical Festival) is proposed to re-introduce the horror movie fan to the originals. Using close-ups of the classic characters modern marketing methods are used to entice the viewer to sit back, get uncomfortable, and ...
Scream in Silence!
THE PROGRAM
Traditional Media: Display card advertising that can be posted in digital form at bus and train kiosks will shock the viewer into viewing the groteque forms that made up the silent horror genre. In addition these ads can be used in the print medium of newsprint and magazines.
Billboard Advertising+: Traffic in large cities are a natural for billboard advertising. Large eye-catching graphics using the assets of Dark Horror imagery as well as the newer technoolgy of large-screen video.
Value Added: How best to calm the post horror movie jitters? With a cool draft of Dark Horror craft beers. Served after the film at the pop-up saloon these cans will surely become collectors items of beer drinkers and horror fans alike.
Collectables: Tickets are currently sent in digital form to a mobile device where the graphics usually are simple text and a QR code. As collectables tickets have taken a back seat. After use, they disappear. The Dark Horror Film Festival will produce tickets that can be kept as a memory of the chilling evening watching silent horror films.
THE SPECIFICS
A scientific and aesthetic sample of typographic and color choices that will best fit the mood of Dark Horror.
INSPIRATION
Sketches, drawings, scribbles and references that helped pull together this project. A random mood board of scary stuff!
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari continues to give me chills. A movie steeped in the German Expressionist tradition it was far ahead of itself presenteing a complete nightmare landscape.
Dark shadows that creep around the night and into the hearts of the fearful. Nosferatu never fails to impress with its pure sense of dread.
The Movies - a book from the 1950's that was always around our home. It captured my imagination from and early age with its pages filled with old movie stills including the horror movies.
Famous Monsters of Filmland was a magazine that I was not allowed to read. That's whay I now collect them like crazy and never fail to get inspiration to the dark arts of horror movies.
My little notebook that goes everywhere with me. Dark Horror found its inspiration while sitting on the Long Island Railroad. It includes scribbles and ideas that may never make it to light.
Draw and sketch and render and visualize. Pencil, paper, marker, whiteout - whatever is handy.