NewsNow: The Creative Folkestone Book Festival

NewsNow was the principal partner of the 2019 Folkestone Book Festival. We had the opportunity to display whatever we wanted on the projector in the main theatre, to run multimedia kiosks in the foyer and lobby, and to create our own merchandise.

The concept is "There's more than one way to see things" - this was intended as a statement about media plurality in the film, but appropriately represented differently in the print ad.

Created a complete brand campaign, from technical infrastructure to promotional film, that established NewsNow's cultural presence and became a reference point for the company's brand identity and values.

The festival theme was "The Shape of Things to Come" - fitting for 2019, with Brexit uncertainty, climate protests, and divisive political shifts dominating the news cycle. This aligned perfectly with NewsNow's mission to encourage wide reading and informed perspectives on complex issues.

We decided on custom Vue.js kiosks running on Raspberry Pis displaying live news feeds directly from our constantly updating aggregation product via an API. The kiosks would periodically run the promotional film I created - it was essentially just constructed from stock footage on a very tight deadline, but I did actually develop an overall narrative script. I also sourced, colour-corrected, and edited the footage, and even scored part of the music myself. The film was also shown in the main auditorium both before and after each event, and during intermissions.

Beyond supporting Folkestone's creative industry, our goals were to:

• Elevate NewsNow's brand identity and demonstrate our values of media plurality
• Show that public-interest journalism matters through high-quality brand materials
• Establish reusable assets and processes for future cultural partnerships

My role was distributed across multiple disciplines:

• Design, development, and implementation of the kiosk app
• Technical aspects of the A/V installation (from display specifications to physical installation of Raspberry Pi units)
• Writing, storyboarding, editing, audio engineering and composition for the promotional film
• Design for print advertisements in the festival programme
• Working with merchandise suppliers, supplying print-ready design files and quality control
• Managing the entire project timeline and delivery

The NewsNow Kiosks

I designed a bespoke Vue.js web app displaying live headlines and imagery across multiple topics, pulling directly from NewsNow's API, with fallbacks in case of poor network connectivity, running on Raspberry Pis. I worked on spec'ing out the display panel/hardware required and testing our various mini-PCs to prototype setups, and eventually the physical installation on location.

The Film

For the promotional film, I presented a concept that leant into the divisive political climate of 2019. Given that NewsNow's brand identity is based in rationality and impartialism, it can be difficult to position the brand in a way that makes a strong statement.

I thought it could be fun to play with duality a bit - illustrate all the extreme polarisation across inflammatory political issues, then present NewsNow as a means to challenge to binary thinking. The concept behind the piece is unity in the face of adversity - recognising each other as human beings, being understanding, and appreciating nuance, complexity, and even chaos.

"There's more than one way to see things."

The team decided to run with my script by vote. Initially, we'd planned to outsource production to a video agency, but after reviewing early storyboards, we weren't satisfied with their direction. Given the tight timeline, I put myself forward to produce the film entirely:

• Writing and storyboarding: Trimmed the script for captioned viewing (kiosks had no audio)
• Sourcing footage: Hours scouring Getty, iStock, and Shutterstock for stock footage that didn't look obviously like stock footage
• Creating the musical score: With no narrator, music became crucial for emotional progression. I took a rhythmic stock piece and added chord progressions, percussion, bass, and effects, evolving it to reflect the narrative tone (15+ years of music production finally paid off professionally)
• Editing and post-production: Synced captions, colour correction, and frame timing

The Print Advertisement

For the print advertisement in the festival brochure, I created a 3D isometric shape that appeared as different 2D shapes when viewed from each axis - a literal visualisation of "there's more than one way to see things." I designed it to work harmoniously with the festival's branding whilst maintaining NewsNow's identity.

I also created vector versions of all branding assets ready for print, ensuring colour profiles were correctly set up for physical reproduction across multiple merchandise items.

The film was well-received by organisers and attendees alike, and even helped stimulate some new copy for the company's brand pages.

The technical infrastructure worked flawlessly throughout the festival. The creative approach established a tone for brand communications that NewsNow could use meaningfully with cultural events whilst staying true to our mission of promoting informed discourse.

Sometimes constraints force the best creative solutions.

Looking back, the time constraints meant I couldn't spend as long on post-production as I'd have liked - more time for colour correction, frame interpolation, and potentially adding narration would have yielded a more polished end product.