Cover Art Commission 2024

To submit your design ideas you will need:

• Sketches or examples of proposed work/artistic direction that speak to the brief and vision of Midsumma Festival 2024 (this can include work already created)
• Interest in producing the artwork for the 2024 Festival campaign within the proposed budget
• A (short) written explanation of how you will address the brief and your vision of Midsumma Festival 2024 Cover/Poster Art.

Anyone!

Selected artwork will be used as the campaign motif for the 2024 Midsumma Festival campaign material. The artwork will be used to promote the 2024 Festival in marketing and representations, and could be used in the following ways:

• Midsumma Festival 2024 Cover/Poster Art
• Midsumma Festival printed program guide front cover
• Printed and online collateral (not limited to: launch collateral, staff t-shirts, billboards, banners, tickets, digital screens, email communication)
• Social media and created content
• By partners and sponsors who are promoting Midsumma Festival
• Opportunity to take part in merchandise artwork (artist to receive percentage of sales)

Each application of the design will include different items of information i.e. Midsumma logos, tag lines, event information etc.

Midsumma is a festival that intrinsically creates safe and inclusive places for communities, with diversity at its very core. The campaign artwork for Midsumma Festival 2024 should be able to appeal to or be appreciated by all of our diverse audiences as well as highlight key themes for the 2024 Festival.

Midsumma Festival 2024 will focus on these key themes:

• (BRAVERY) Midsumma Festival’s major project for 2024 is A Brave(R) Space.  

‘A Brave(R) Space’ will be an artistic exploration of intersectional LGBTQIA+ identity(s) involving the commissioning, development and creation of brave new contemporary works, across art forms, for queer professional artists across all ages, disability, QPoC (Queer People of Colour), First Nations and Trans and Gender Diverse communities. Now is the time for bravery; the championing of our diverse cultural warriors as come we together as artists, audiences and communities and be the change-makers for our future. To be courageous in the development of new contemporary arts practises, pushing creative boundaries in the pursuit of a queer aesthetic unique to our region of the world.

• Arts and Culture – Midsumma has repositioned itself over the past few years as a globally relevant cultural influencer with artistic and thought leadership as well as learning and diversity at its heart. We have experienced rapid growth in audiences, breadth and scope of artists, community engagement and depth of artistic partnerships and new work developed.
• Diversity and LGBTQIA+ representation – Midsumma attracts broad attendances across age ranges and demographics, truly representing inclusion and diversity in all its forms. For this reason, we are ideally placed to make the many diverse queer communities in Victoria more visible.
• First Nations engagement – Midsumma will continue strong and meaningful engagement with LGBTQIA+ Aboriginal communities for the 2023 Festival. Over the past three years, there has been a significant increase in First Nations artists and events in both the open access and ‘Midsumma Presents’ programs of Midsumma.
• Queer Women in Music – Midsumma recognises that women and queer musicians are underrepresented and will continue to highlight the powerful contribution queer female and non-binary musicians make to the Australian music industry.

Midsumma Festival is held in summer and the festival conjures bright imagery when we pop into the minds of our artists, culture makers and audiences. It is important for Midsumma to have a guide cover that reflects our contemporary nature and vibrant imagery and tone (without always needing to use confirmative rainbow colours).

The Midsumma brand colour is red: RGB 249,52, 72, Pantone 1787C, CMYK 0,87, 61, 0

It’s not essential to use this colour, the Midsumma campaign imagery for Midsumma Festival 2024 will be based on your artwork for the Cover/Poster.

Since being launched in 1988 Melbourne by the Gay Business Association, Midsumma has grown to become Australia’s premier LGBTQIA+ arts and culture festival. Each year a different artist has been commissioned to design the front cover of the printed official Midsumma Festival guide.

• View the front covers of the printed Midsumma guides, year-by-year, (1998 to 2023) here.

(Left) Midsumma Festival 2023 printed program guide cover - The guide cover artwork and festival theme were by Jack Lee, a A Malaysian Chinese artist and architect based in Naarm/Melbourne. The work is inspired by the recent people-led social change movements such as Stop Asian Hate & Black Lives Matter, and the lack of diversity in mainstream media. 

(Right) Midsumma Festival 2022 printed program guide cover - The guide cover artwork and festival theme were by Gonketa (Jaycob Campbell), a Melbourne-based visual artist who was born Deaf. The work aimed to educate and teach audiences Auslan, using key festival and queer community terms.

(Left) Midsumma Festival 2021 official campaign hero imagery was created by XR artist Marc-O-Matic. This ‘world’ of Melbourne represents Midsumma Festival: how we amplify LGBTQIA+ visibility and activate physical spaces to bring them to life. Midsumma commissioned Marc-O-Matic to design this world with representative venues, people, arts landmarks, and queer flag representational colours on the buildings to bring Melbourne back physically and visibly to life again for Midsumma Festival 2021. The “world” can be activated by a specially designed AR filter on the Midsumma Festival Instagram page

(Right) Midsumma Festival official printed guide 2020 cover image features artists and performers (clockwise): Rainbow Chan, Stone Motherless Cold, Sally Goldner and Joel Creasey, artwork by Elwyn Murray.

Crediting: Midsumma Festival will credit your design, artwork, image, model or illustration where image credits are appropriate. Midsumma will request your name, social media handles and website, plus art title for crediting. 

Media and file format deliverables: Artwork may be created in any media, including but not limited to painting, printmaking, sculpture, textiles, photography and drawing. Final artwork will need to be presented to Midsumma as an image of the artwork or final art submitted as .ai .pdf or .psd file formats only. Moving imagery or video can be used in addition but cannot be the main image for the printed cover or poster. 

Please consider that each application of the design will include different items of information i.e. Midsumma logos, tag lines, event information etc. - these items will be placed by Midsumma.

Midsumma Festival requests your artwork be adaptable to portrait and landscape dimensions with your consent. The final design should be delivered  in the following dimensions (but not limited to): 

• Midsumma guide cover: 210mm x 227 mm 
  • Midsumma AO Poster: 1189mm x 841 mm
• Website and social Media Imagery: 4:3, 3:4, 16:9 and 1:1 ratio 

• Out of home advertising: Large file formats

The Midsumma Festival 2024 program will launch in November 2023. The following milestones will need to be achieved to ensure the guide can be printed before the launch:

• Respond to this brief by 5pm Friday 2 June 2023
• Midsumma to confirm your submission have moved on to Round 2 by Thursday 8 June 2023
• Respond to the offer from Midsumma by 5pm 13 June 2023
• Round 2 – progressed Poser Art designs, based on feedback, due 5pm Monday 26 June 2022
• Midsumma to confirm your image is successful by 5pm Friday 30 June 2023
• Respond to the offer from Midsumma by by 5pm Monday 3 July 2023
• Finalist to prepare final artwork, based on feedback by 5pm Monday 17 July 2023

These dates are somewhat negotiable pending an initial discussion.

If you are successful in Round 1 – $500 will be offered to successful Round 1 ideas moving to Round 2 (final round), this is paid to assist with your time in progressing the artwork to be assessed for the final round.

A commission fee of $3,000 is available to the successful finalist of Round 2, this payment will cover the production of the artwork and required deliverables (inclusive of production costs and artists fee). Payment for the commission will consist of 25% payment upfront, 25% payment at the centre milestone and 50% final payment upon completion.

Online – Proposals can be submitted via the form below.

Email – Proposals can be emailed to [email protected]

Post - Proposals can also be addressed to Midsumma at Midsumma Festival, 158 City Rd, Southbank, VIC, 3006. Each proposal should contain or address the following:

• Sketches or examples of proposed work/artistic direction that speak to the brief and vision of Midsumma Festival 2024 (this can include work already created).
• Interest in producing the artwork for the 2024 Festival campaign within the proposed budget
• A (short) written explanation of how you will address the brief and your vision of Midsumma Festival 2024 Cover/Poster Art.

Enquiries: Proposal enquiries should be directed to Midsumma via [email protected]

If you would like to sub

For further information please contact:

Felicity McIntosh
Manager, Marketing & Communications
[email protected]
Office: 03 9296 6600

If you would like to apply and the online form below is not accessible to you, you can apply by emailing [email protected] with any of the following application methods:

- Voice Memo 
- Email your answers
- Zoom Meeting (in English or Auslan)
- 2-minute video pitch
- Auslan Video

Enquiries: Proposal enquiries should be directed to Midsumma via [email protected]