Creative Becoming: New Visual Expressions of Filmbuilding

In the true spirit of co-creation, EMA’s Communications team provides critical capacity-building support to Filmbuilding to create a new visual identity and identifiable brand to better tell its story and communicate its impact.
Kyla Goss
March 27, 2026
•
3 min read

One of the defining elements of EMA’s work with our partners is the capacity-building support provided by our young team members. What makes that work unique is how deeply steeped we are in who our partners are—not just as they are today but who they aspire to be. We see them, we hear them, we learn from them, and we co-create solutions with them that allow them to share their outstanding work with the public at large. 

Early in 2025, Tom Flint, Founder and Executive Director of EMA partner Filmbuilding, came to us with an ask for our Communications team to help create a visual identity that communicated what Filmbuilding was and what it aimed to do:

As opportunities for Filmbuilding continue to grow, it is becoming more essential for the program to have a recognizable “brand” that helps connect with its base and tell its story. As the Filmbuilding program and mission has shifted over the past year to one that seeks to support communities by confronting challenges through discovery-based filmmaking experiences, the time has come to express this through its branding and marketing efforts in a more intentional and standardized way.
However, it is becoming clear that people don’t fully “get” what Filmbuilding is, so it may be time to create a new (or alternate) logo and define a set of branding guidelines for the program.”

Over a series of meetings, EMA’s Communications team sat with Tom to hear more about Filmbuilding’s origin story, the source of inspiration behind Filmbuilding’s original logo, and what Tom really wanted to express through a new visual identity. 

With each meeting, my understanding of Tom’s passion for co-creative and collaborative filmmaking, intuitive storytelling, and human connection deepened. Through those conversations, I understood how the Filmbuilding process helped young people connect with and communicate their worlds. I recognized how vital it was for our team to present Tom with a visual identity that communicated that understanding.

Tom's previous work on Filmbuilding's branding was incredibly thoughtful, so the challenge really was taking the sophistication Tom has imbued into the organization's identity and adding clarity to give a more focused visual language. I'm really proud of the way we were able to translate the mission and creative style of Filmbuilding into something playful and easily recognizable that could have only come out of collaborating and co-creating with Tom! —Anna Crawford, EMA Communications Manager

Our team worked diligently to develop two distinct directions to present to Tom that we felt best reflected Filmbuilding’s mission and vision and clearly communicated what Filmbuilding is and does. After working together virtually for months, we had the incredible opportunity to present those directions to Tom and our team, in person, during a convening in Boston in April. 

Direction one is more directly inspired by the original logo. Featuring an enso circle ink texture in combination with a film reel- capturing the essence of intuitive creativity in filmmaking.
Direction two takes inspiration from the vision of the Filmbuilding process and celebrates imperfections.
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What happened the night of that presentation demonstrated how deep the trust is between EMA and our partners, as well as the magic of care-based work. After a lively collective dialogue, Tom ultimately settled on the “filmbuddy” identity (a term coined in the moment by one of EMA’s Network Managers, Rachel Grace). The filmbuddy is a symbol of creative becoming — it  could be any young person, telling any story, in any place in the world. 

We approached the identity as something that should feel open and adaptable, reflecting a process rooted in exploration. The filmbuddy became a way to hold that idea, a form that can shift and take on different meanings depending on context. —Cedrick Gustave, EMA Director of Communications & Design

In addition to Tom’s enthusiastic response to the presentation, it was really meaningful to hear the wider EMA team at the convening echo some of the same considerations made by the Communications team, despite never having seen the presentation before. It was clear that, collectively, we knew and understood Filmbuilding, and now Filmbuilding had a visual identity that ensured people “just got it.” In the four months it took our team to develop the visual identity in collaboration with Tom, we witnessed Tom’s sense of confidence grow in expressing what Filmbuilding is and its impact on storytelling.

The filmbuddy not only serves as a logo for Filmbuilding but as a continued expression of the impact of co-creation and collaboration. 

‍Working with Tom was a reminder to our team of how important trust and clarity of vision are in the creative process. He came in with a strong foundation, which pushed us to listen more closely, design more intentionally, and focus on what truly mattered. —Cedrick Gustave, EMA Director of Communications & Design
Design assets created for Filmbuilding by the EMA Communications team

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