Responses by John Ball, creative director, and Anique Mautner, marketing and strategy director, MiresBall.
Background: The San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival is one of the many community programs planned for the World Design Capital, San Diego–Tijuana 2024. This three-day festival celebrates the musical richness of our region with both local and internationally acclaimed performers presented in both cities. With border issues becoming increasingly politicized, the inaugural San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival needed to create a positive perception for its cross-border concept. Reaching fans on both sides of the border meant capturing the energy of jazz while creating a high-impact design with multinational appeal.
Design thinking: By reimagining the border fence’s iconic vertical bars to suggest curtains framing a stage, the identity presents a vision of musical common ground. The full wordmark references the festival’s binational footprint with alternating, back-and-forth typography, while hot, zesty colors reflect its Latin jazz focus.
Challenges: The design solution required us to navigate polarizing issues about immigration and borders. It unfolded into an invitation for people on either side of the border—physically and metaphorically—to experience community, commonality and music together.
Favorite details: The border wall becoming stage curtains. This reframing flips the narrative from a difficult, politically-charged conversation into a space where art—and community—flourish.
Visual influences: We blended two visual influences for inspiration. First, the classic Blue Note Records album covers designed by Reid Miles, most notably A Night in Tunisia by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. We imbued this established visual language of jazz with colorful bardas de baile—the vernacular signage and colors of Tijuana advertisements for music, dances and carnivals. These two influences became something unexpected and new: a design that captures both the cross-border mission and the vibrancy of the musical art form.
Specific project demands: As is typical in performing arts projects, many different performers supplied unique imagery. We borrowed elements from the logo and a vibrant color treatment to unify these existing images and elevate their visual appeal.
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