01Trait
Substantive
Intelligent
Programming that assumes the audience reads, thinks, and pays attention. No hand-holding, no dumbing down.
Brand Identity/2015–2025
Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival
Brand IdentityArt DirectionPrint DesignEvent CollateralMotion GraphicsDigital Design
Building a brand for an emergent film festival
We worked directly with the festival founders from day one. The identity had to feel as serious as the journalism it celebrated.
Double Exposure is a project of 100Reporters, the investigative news organization. The festival combines public film screenings with a professional symposium for journalists and visual storytellers.
Workhorse has been the festival’s design partner since its second year, building the brand identity and art directing every piece of collateral that followed.
That relationship has continued for over a decade. Each year brings new posters, new materials, and new ways to push the system forward.
2025
2024
2019
Event collateral & print
Wristbands. Lanyards. Postcards. Programs. Every piece a festivalgoer touched had to feel like part of the same world.
The print system carries the festival from the mailbox to the theater lobby. Same type, same green, same confidence.
Double Exposure exists because the stories that take the longest to uncover deserve the biggest screen.
Design System
A visual language built for surveillance-era storytelling.
Every element of the Double Exposure system signals the same thing: this festival takes the work as seriously as the filmmakers do.
2015Founded
11Festivals
4Days per Year
DCWashington, DC
01Color System
Color Palette
DX Electric Green
PrimaryHex#99ff33
RGB153 · 255 · 51
HSL90° · 100% · 60%
CMYK40 · 0 · 80 · 0
■ 16.7:1□ 1.3:1
Black
SurfaceHex#000000
RGB0 · 0 · 0
HSL0° · 0% · 0%
CMYK0 · 0 · 0 · 100
■ 1.0:1□ 21.0:1
White
TypographyHex#ffffff
RGB255 · 255 · 255
HSL0° · 0% · 100%
CMYK0 · 0 · 0 · 0
■ 21.0:1□ 1.0:1
DX Gold
Original AccentHex#d4a843
RGB212 · 168 · 67
HSL42° · 63% · 55%
CMYK0 · 21 · 68 · 17
■ 9.5:1□ 2.2:1
Signal Red
SecondaryHex#e63946
RGB230 · 57 · 70
HSL355° · 78% · 56%
CMYK0 · 75 · 70 · 10
■ 5.0:1□ 4.2:1
Gray
MutedHex#808080
RGB128 · 128 · 128
HSL0° · 0% · 50%
CMYK0 · 0 · 0 · 50
■ 5.3:1□ 3.9:1
Contrast Pairings
How the palette colors perform together — text on surface combinations ranked by contrast ratio.
Aa
Black
on White21.0:1 ✓
Aa
White
on Black21.0:1 ✓
Aa
DX Electric Green
on Black16.7:1 ✓
Aa
Black
on DX Electric Green16.7:1 ✓
Aa
Black
on DX Gold9.5:1 ✓
Aa
DX Gold
on Black9.5:1 ✓
Aa
Black
on Gray5.3:1 ✓
Aa
Gray
on Black5.3:1 ✓
Aa
Black
on Signal Red5.0:1 ✓
Aa
Signal Red
on Black5.0:1 ✓
Aa
White
on Signal Red4.2:1
Aa
Signal Red
on White4.2:1
02Typography
Type System
05Accent
2015Acumin Variable
Schedule / 10:00 AM — Ballroom
Panel 3 — Investigative Methods
Oct 30 — Nov 2, 2025 / Washington, DC
SansCondensedGrotesqueNeo-GroteskVariable
Adobe Originals↗Variable (Condensed)
03Logo System
Marks & Lockups
A system that grew with the festival.
What started as a wordmark in 2015 grew into a complete mark library — lockups, compact icons, laurels, anniversary seals, sub-brand treatments, and social assets. Each addition answered a real need as the festival expanded.
01Original Wordmark (2015)
02DX Wordmark (2024)
03Horizontal Lockup
04Stacked Lockup
05DX Monogram (2019)
06DX Circle (2024)
07DX Arrow + Year
08IFF Blocks
095th Annual Laurels (2019)
10Laurels Horizontal
11Laurels Stacked
12DXFEST24 Laurels
1310th Anniversary Seal
1410th Annual Badge
15IFF + Symposium
16Social Avatar (DX)
04Brand Language
4.2/ from the founding belief
Values
The operating system. What the brand commits to, every time.
01
Rigor
The festival is for journalism that earned its facts; standards stay high.
02
Transparency
Methods, sources, and intent are visible in the program, not just the films.
03
Collaboration
Editors, lawyers, archivists, and filmmakers working in the open.
04
Protection
Sources, subjects, and reporters need cover; the festival is part of that cover.
4.3/ from those values
Character (Brand Personality)
Five traits that turn values into behavior.
02Trait
Focused
Targeted
Built for journalists and filmmakers first. The specificity sharpens the experience rather than narrowing it.
03Trait
Authoritative
Distinguished
A decade of consistent programming earned this. The credibility is real, not performed.
04Trait
Current
Forward-looking
Early on emerging formats, technologies, and voices. Design that feels present without chasing trends.
4.4/ from those traits
Brand Pillars (Messaging)
The three things this brand always says — the messages every piece of work ladders back to.
01Pillar
Truth in Focus
The Investigative Instinct
The festival exists because investigative storytelling matters. Every film selected, every panel convened, every conversation started begins with the same question: what truth needs telling?
02Pillar
DC as Stage
Where Stories Land
Washington is not a backdrop. It is the point. Documentary and investigative work hits different in a city where the subjects of these films walk the same streets as the audience.
03Pillar
Community & Discourse
Beyond the Screen
Screenings are the start, not the finish. Symposiums, panels, and conversations extend the impact of every film past the theater and into the work.
4.5/ from all of the above
Voice
How the brand sounds out loud — the tone every word inherits.
Direct/Cinematic/Urgent/Insider
01From: Substantive
Lead with the story's stakes, not the festival's credentials.
02From: Focused
Talk to filmmakers and journalists as peers. Never as patrons.
03From: Authoritative
Urgency without sensationalism. The work speaks for itself.
The System in Action
A brand that works as hard as the stories it tells.
From type lockups and photo treatments to press badges and film schedules — here's how the system scales across every touchpoint of the festival.
The 11th Annual
Double
Expo
sure
Investigative Film
Festival & Symposium
Oct 30 – Nov 2, 2025
Washington, DC
DX
Druk Bold on neon surface
Where
Journalism
Meets
Cinema
Black text only on green — white is illegible on this neon surface. The system's strictest rule.
Secondary Accent
Signal Red — links, hover states, urgency against the neon
Spot Color SystemOne system.
One system.
Annual accents.
The festival launched in 2016 with a warm gold accent and double-exposure photography. By 2018, the electric green became the signature — but the modular system was always built to accommodate a rotating spot color each year, giving each edition its own energy while the structure stays locked.
2016Festival Gold
2018Electric Green
2019Electric Green
2024Electric Green
2025Electric Green
Photo Language
Surveillance meets cinema.
High Contrast
B&W, boosted contrast, crushed blacks
Green Duotone
Multiply blend, brand green at 60%
Grain + Scanlines
Heavy noise, CRT scan-line bars
Light Editorial
Desaturated, blown highlights
DonateGet Tickets
2025 Official Selection
Film Slate
Documentary98 minFog of Falsehood
Investigative Documentary · 2025
Feature112 minClosed Doors, Open Wounds
Investigative Documentary · 2025
Spotlight90 minRace in Real Time
Investigative Documentary · 2025
Collateral Components
PressSarah Chen
The Washington Post
DX Fest / 25#0247
Press Credential
DX Film Fest / 25
Screening Pass
Fog of Falsehood
Dir. Unknown · 98 min · USA
Fri, Oct 31
7:30 PM · Ballroom
Screening Ticket
journalist@press.org
→
Interactive Elements
© 2025 Double Exposure · 100Reporters
PressContactDonate
Program
Schedule
National Press Club
Washington, DC
Thursday, October 30
Day 16:00 pmSocial
Opening Night Reception
National Press Club
7:30 pmScreening
Opening Night Film
Ballroom
Friday, October 31
Day 210:00 amPanel
Closed Doors, Open Wounds
Conference Room
1:30 pmScreening
Fog of Falsehood
Ballroom
4:00 pmDiscussion
Race in Real Time
Ballroom
7:00 pmScreening
Feature Presentation
Ballroom
Saturday, November 1
Day 310:00 amKeynote
Symposium Keynote
Ballroom
2:00 pmScreening
Documentary Shorts Block
Conference Room
7:30 pmScreening
Closing Night Film & Awards
Ballroom
2016 — 2025A decade
A decade
of truth.
From a scrappy first-year festival to a nationally recognized institution — the brand system grew with every poster, badge, and screen. Each year brought new imagery and energy, but the underlying system never wavered.
Brand launch. Gold accent, double-exposure photography, the identity takes shape.
Electric green arrives. Three poster variants for a single year — the system matures.
Surveillance camera imagery, fingerprint graphics — the investigative instinct visualized.
The system holds. Environmental mockups prove scale from screens to signage.
10th anniversary. Double-exposure photography returns, now with the glitch aesthetic.
11th year. Satellite surveillance imagery — the system at full scale.
Digital & social presence
The identity holds together across the website, social, and email. Same monospaced type. Same electric green. Same surveillance-inspired graphic system.
A brand earns its keep when it survives the jump from print to a 1080-pixel square. Double Exposure does.
Co-branded film posters
The DX identity extended to co-branded posters for featured films, proving the system could flex across wildly different subject matter while staying unmistakably Double Exposure.
Each year’s official selections received co-branded poster treatments that paired the festival’s typographic system with the film’s own imagery. The result: a consistent curatorial voice across documentaries spanning everything from Northern Ireland to American roadside motels.
The concept of “Double Exposure”
A double exposure layers two images into one frame. So does investigative journalism. The story you see, and the story underneath it.
That tension drives the identity. Monospaced type as evidence. Electric green as the signal cutting through. A system built to hold the work without ever overshadowing it.
Shaping the Future, One Visionary Brand at a Time
Workhorse Brands: Built for the Long Run.
For over a decade, we’ve empowered ambitious individuals to build ambitious brands through strategic storytelling, precise aesthetics, and robust systems.
Powerful, authentic, and immersive brands for science, art, and culture since 2014.
For over a decade, we’ve empowered ambitious individuals to build ambitious brands through strategic storytelling, precise aesthetics, and robust systems.
“Brand Sprints” might just be a fancy term, but if it means we deliver fast, impactful results on time, then we’re ready to run.
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