ARTICLE COPY:
What if the Indianapolis graphic design community had a stage to showcase their amazing skills AND a platform to help support a vital arts organization? Bonus: what if it’s an event that’s a boatload of fun, too?!?!
With that simple notion, the framework for the Bigger Picture Show was hammered together in 2010 by Lodge Design, a boutique branding agency, recognizing the need for a signature fundraiser to help support the Indy Film Fest, as well as an opportunity to celebrate the local creative community in a way that had never been done before in Indianapolis.
From that first exhibition in the second floor gallery of the Murphy building, the Bigger Picture Show grew and grew and grew. Today, the Indy Film Fest’s annual silent auction features one-of-a-kind movie posters by more than 100 local graphic designers and artists.
How does it work? Easy.
Every spring, the Lodge team invites a growing group of Indy’s best designers to re-imagine movie posters based on a unique theme. In the show’s history, themes have celebrated everything from movie sets and soundtracks, to Indy’s hometown hero Greg Kinnear and otherworldly movie mash-ups (think There’s Something about Mary Poppins, and Purple Rain Man). At the end of the night, all proceeds from the event and auction are donated to the Indy Film Fest to help fuel its mission to champion movies that entertain, challenge, and expand perspectives in Indianapolis and beyond.
Over the past 14 years the Bigger Picture Show has grown into one of the city’s most anticipated arts and culture events, raising nearly $100,000 for the Indy Film Fest. That financial support has enabled the Festival to fund unique year-round programming that engages local organizations to create shared experiences around film. Film series like Roving Cinema, Cereal Cinema, Rock + Reel, and Film-to-Fork are all possible thanks to the vision and commitment of the Indianapolis design community.
It all comes down to good people doing good things together. That’s what the Bigger Picture Show, Lodge Design and the Indy Film Fest are all about.