The DC Jazz Festival is Washington's premier cultural event — twenty years of celebrating America's original art form, drawing tens of thousands of visitors from across the world to The Wharf. As Creative Director at Sage, I've led the festival's evolving visual identity and full creative production — a brand that reinvents itself every year while staying unmistakably itself.
How do you brand something that reinvents itself every year? You build a visual system that improvises — new look, same soul, every single time.
CHALLENGE:
Most festivals have one visual identity. DC JazzFest needs a new one every year — fresh enough to feel current, consistent enough to feel like the same festival, and flexible enough to work across everything from a stage banner at The Wharf to a t-shirt, a social carousel, a program guide, and a coloring book for kids.
The audience spans jazz purists, first-time listeners, families, international visitors, and D.C. locals. The brand has to speak to all of them without diluting itself. And every year, the creative ships on a timeline dictated by the festival calendar — there's no pushing the deadline when 68,000 people are showing up Labor Day weekend.
APPROACH:
Each year, we develop a completely new visual direction — new palette, new graphic language, new energy. But the system underneath stays consistent: a modular design framework that scales from digital ads to out-of-home to merchandise to on-site environmental graphics.
For the 20th anniversary, we created a dedicated celebratory mark — a bright blue and white identity designed to complement the festival's signature red. Bold enough to signal a milestone, flexible enough to work across every touchpoint from stage backdrops to email campaigns.
The work goes beyond marketing. We've designed and produced the full brand experience — event signage, social content, merchandise including custom t-shirts that have become a collector's item for regulars, program guides, promotional campaigns, and digital assets. Every touchpoint is designed to feel like the festival before you hear a single note.
This isn't a rebrand that shipped and got forgotten. It's a living system that grows with the organization, adapts to each moment, and still feels unmistakably itself. Jazz improvises. The brand does too.
RESULTS:
• 68,000+ in-person attendees at the 2024 festival
• Visitors from 20+ countries
• 1.6 million people served since the festival's founding
• Full creative production across print, digital, OOH, merchandise, and environmental
• Multi-year creative partnership spanning 6+ festival editions
• Coverage in The Washington Post, Washington Times, DownBeat, Jazz Times
• 60M+ advertising reach including 4.7M+ via Metrorail placements
