The corporate style of the movie theater should attract attention, explain how the institution is better than others, and encourage you to visit it. The identity is created by many visual elements: building facade, signs, brochures, posters, popcorn boxes, website poster.
Movie theater attendance has been slowly dropping since the nineties, thanks to consumers having more choices at home – more channels, more convenient viewing environments. Therefore, it is crucial for a movie theater to have the right corporate identity, branding, and promotional strategy. Often theaters show not only movies, but also sports matches, rock concerts, and opera. Others emphasize the combination of movies and good food.
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In any case, the movie theater is now forced to do more than just show movies. Cinema is now a center of entertainment, and since consumers have a very large choice of what to do, the key role is played by the presentation, realized also through corporate identity.
Since cinema as an art has a very rich history of conveying a visual message, when creating a corporate identity quite often turn to its history, taking as a basis the works of the classics. Another option is to look to the history of the movie theater itself. This is what Madrid did when they created Matadero on the site of a former slaughterhouse.
The movie theater’s identityindustrialism and magic
The huge 65,000 square meter industrial complex is located in a similarly industrial area. An abandoned slaughterhouse has been turned into a film and arts center. The spirit of the big industry was reflected in Matadero’s corporate style – in fonts, design of halls, polygraphy.
By the way, Matadero is rightly called a miracle of architecture, because the lighting was designed in a special way in the design of the halls. When designers are asked to redesign an existing building, it’s quite a challenge: the history of the place and its potential must be taken into account.
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The archive and movie theater space combined practicality with pure emotion – thanks to the austere design of the space and a special lighting presentation. The lights in the theater are embedded in a “weave” of irrigation hoses. Sounds kind of scary, but check out what it looks like (photo below). Thus, Matadero’s signature style successfully combines pure industrialism with a magical flight of fancy – which has always been inherent in the art of cinema.
The corporate identity of the movie theaterindustrial without magic, but with prestige
Another example of some industrialism in the image is the Quad movie theaters in New York and the Roxy in Dubai. In the former, the emphasis on the futuristic atmosphere of neon is noticeable. This is a modern, concise and purely functional space.
“Square” movie theater – square image. The logo of the movie theater, the four letters are played up in the names of the four auditoriums, signage, and the lighting of the rooms. The angular style is retained in fonts, reception design, and navigation signs.
Another movie theater chain, Roxy in Dubai, also opted for a neon atmosphere, but served it up in a different way. Dubai and the Emirates are associated with luxury, so the chain’s corporate identity practically screams: “Wealth!”
That said, the richness is very understated, no kitsch. Black and a monochromatic black-gray-white scheme are used as the main colors. Other tones – dark orange, white and kraft paper color – are used as muted accents.
Monochrome vs multicolor
Another prime example of the industry being beaten by the entertainment industry is the Oil movie theater. In general, the choice of name is justified, oil is closely related to the film industry: it is an essential raw material for photo and movie film. Plus the city of Yaroslavl, where the movie theater is located, is known for its oil refinery.
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Accordingly, the branded range contains black and white, additional colors are gray and greenish. The logo is reminiscent of flowing oil, the fonts are bold and voluminous.
Other cinemas choose a whole palette of colors in their corporate style: for example, Rooftop in Australia and Ukraina in Zhytomyr.
The Australian movie theater is located on the roof of a city building, which is why the name was chosen. Their signature style combines rainbow hues and geometric shapes: a colorful world of cinematography seems to burst forth from the flat rectangular roof.
Cinema “Ukraine” turned to multicolor aesthetics of abstract forms – their graphics reminds something of Kandinsky’s paintings. The fonts are dense and concise. Here, too, there is a hint of the nature of cinema – at once creative and industrial.
Another Ukrainian chain of cinemas in its corporate style also refers to the many colors of the rainbow – KinoLand. Their range and style carry the idea that cinematography is almost synonymous with fireworks of emotion, a kaleidoscope of events. Emotions and events are constantly changing and have no boundaries.
Therefore, the KinoLand style has almost all the colors of the rainbow and a wide variety of patterns that change depending on the movie or event being presented. The structure of the ornaments is the same and repeats the five-bar frame of the film reel.
The same spool is visible in the logo in place of the letter “O”. The logo itself combines hard “square” and delicate fonts, which again leads to the idea of combining the incongruous, creativity and industry; airy ideas of directors and actors recorded on quite material film with no less material movie cameras.
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The corporate identity of the movie theater: not just movies
Many movie theater brands are following the current trends in the entertainment world: offering more than one entertainment experience. So, for example, do large casino complexes in the gambling capitals of the world, combining gambling halls, hotel, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and so on.
Although casino owners still prefer to separate the restaurant and the slot machine room. There are not yet slot machines combined with a restaurant table. But movie theaters, where the visitor sits not only in the spectator’s chair, but also at the table of the eater – exist, and for a couple of decades.
Examples include the Alamo Drafthouse chain in Texas and Cine-de Chef in Southeast Asia.
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The first chain, along with the movie screening, allows you to order hearty food and drinks: burgers, pizza, grilled meats, beer and cocktails. Accordingly, the logo of the movie theater looks more like the logo of some diner: red and yellow colors, bold font. Totally different from the logo of the same Matadero or Quod.
Cine-de Chef is a South Korean movie theater whose name literally means “movie with chefs,” meaning chefs. This movie restaurant targets the premium and luxury segment, serving French and Italian cuisine.
Its style resembles something of the signature style of the Roxy movie theater – the same understated luxury. However, the gamma here is a little different: dark brown, all shades of beige, gray tones. The sleek fonts add to the impression of glamor and elegance usually associated with the same haute cuisine.
That’s not the way to do it
The lack of brand identity is detrimental to cinemas – potential audiences don’t recognize the brand and don’t see what makes it special, what they should pay for. An example of “how not to do it” – Kiev cinemas “Line Cinema”.
At first glance, they cannot be called a chain, because in the perception of the average consumer, a chain is several outlets with the same style. Movie Line theaters’ signs have different lettering. The interiors (bars, auditoriums) are furnished in different styles. There is no uniform style of posters and posters. The buildings do not bear the common logo of the chain at a glance. The logo itself is not well remembered due to the fact that it is not concise and monotonous.
Conclusion
As we can see, the corporate identity of a movie theater almost always contains elements of incongruent, as mentioned above. For designers here is a huge field of activity, and you can choose any accents, from strict monochrome to rainbow multicolor. It is worth remembering that the cinema is a complex entertainment center, and therefore, the creation of its corporate identity is a similarly complex task.
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