Hanabi(means ’fireworks’ in Japanese) Film Festival is an annual Japanese film festival held at Clinton Street Theater, an independent theater and community space in Portland, Oregon.

Taking place every mid-August, when Buddhist custom (Obon) is happening in Japan , they celebrate a wide range of Japanese films – from classic, independent and cult titles from the 1960s to contemporary works, including North American premiere.

Aaron, The owner of the theater, invited me to create the main visual illustration for 2026’s event poster and T-shirt, happening through August 17 – 29.

Given complete creative freedom, I first began by exploring objects, keywords or anything that came to mind in connection with the festival, and sketched out visual ideas. From there, I started brainstorming ways to develop those associations into a cohesive concept.

While digging deeper into keywords associated with fireworks and Japanese summer culture, such as summer festivals, goldfish scooping, nostalgia for the countryside and so on, I also wanted to incorporate Portland’s strong sub-cultural identity and explore how it could infuse with Japanese elements – ideas includes cute shiba dogs cosplaying film characters, parodying one of the showcasing film poster.

After exploring several directions, I settled in surrealism theme.

Many film titles and their key motifs had some connection to water – for example rain, eel, snake and eggs. These motifs could draw out one of the quintessential elements of Japanese summer culture: horror films.

This became the starting point for developing a surrealist illustration with a slightly dark, mysterious and dreamlike atmosphere.

The final concept developed around the egg, symbolizing a vessel of imagination and functions like a screen.

An eel born out of a small crack, and some goldfishes surrounds the egg and drifting in a weightless, fluid space. The egg surface is reflecting the scene where a torii gate standing in an ocean and a small origami crane floating by its side, back against sunrise over a mountain range, suggesting the world of showcasing films. Plus, rippled water surfaces add another dimension of this surrealism world.

The accent colour is set as vermilion to bring traditional Japanese aesthetics, while drawing strong contrast by other dark and pale colour tones.

A modest serif-style typeface is used to complement the dynamics in the illustration. It express the quieter, minimalistic and contemplative side of Japanese aesthetics.

T-shirt front design features the poster illustration, and the back design features the typography that re-arranged in a minimal composition, designed to modestly sit between the shoulders.

Hanabi Film Festival