Midsummer Fest 2025

01Background

Midsummer Fest is a two-day outdoor music festival held in Shanghai each June, now in its fourth year. The posters changed style every year and nobody remembered them. For 2025 the organisers wanted a key visual that could last several editions.

02My role

I led the key visual direction and the poster series, and also designed the line-up layout, the extensions to tickets and wayfinding, and the hand-drawn lettering for the festival title.

03Process

1. 1

   One circle to carry everything

   The solstice is the longest day of the year, so the sun became the only shape. The characters sit inside an ink circle, with a gradient sunset outside it. There are two versions: one for reading up close and one for seeing from far away.

2. 2

   Writing the title by hand, then refining it

   I brushed the two characters more than a hundred times, picked the most fluid stroke, then digitised and cleaned it so it stays sharp even at three metres tall.

3. 3

   Testing in print

   The gradient looks greyer on offset paper. Working with the printer, we tried three inks and spot-colour combinations. Overprinting fluorescent pink with orange finally gave the right brightness.

04Result

The series went up across more than thirty Shanghai neighbourhoods and metro stations, and sixty percent of tickets sold on the first day. The organisers have confirmed the key visual will run through 2027, changing only the colourway each year.