Stirling Photography Festival Poster 2025

7 Aug

BACKGROUND & PROBLEM

The Stirling Photography Festival, a celebrated annual event, commissions their annual festival poster that is used to advertise the festival and theme over the festival period.

CONTEXT AND KEY CHALLENGES

With a legacy of collaboration with local artists, the festival needed a poster that would not only reflect this year’s theme, ‘Beyond’, but also resonate with Stirling’s rich cultural and historical context, particularly as the city marks its 900th anniversary.

Commissioned by the festival and sponsored by The Barracks, the poster was intended for widespread promotional use throughout the festival period, with a limited run of signed prints available in August and September. The key challenges included:

Create a design that could convey both the forward-looking theme ‘Beyond’ and the deep-rooted heritage of the region.
Balancing abstraction with recognisability, ensuring the design was artistic yet accessible.
Capturing Stirling’s identity, its landscape, history, and future aspirations within a single visual.
Stand out among previous years’ posters, which had been created by other talented local illustrators and designers.

GOALS & SUCCESS METRICS

Produce a striking and meaningful poster that aligns with the festival’s theme and branding while communicating the theme in an accessible and recognisable way.
Give this year’s festival a unique visual identify inspired by the theme.

OUTCOMES

The final design featured an abstract interpretation of the horizon as seen from Abbey Craig, beneath the iconic Wallace Monument, looking out toward Ben Vorlich and Stùc a' Chròin. This visual metaphor, beyond the city, beyond the horizon, beyond the viewfinder, captured the essence of the theme and offered a contemplative reflection on Stirling’s past and future.