Francesco Imola

Francesco Imola

Designer in Folkestone, UK, He/Him

About

Bridging the undefined gap between design, strategy, comms and art. Operating worldwide on GMT. Now available for special projects.

Contact

Projects

Ongoing
Unifying Blueberry's Brand

A big part of my work at Blueberry is dedicated to design. So far, I have created hundreds of assets, including magazine features, social media content, adverts, and event graphics.

2023
The Roundups at Blueberry

To solidify branding and drive bookings, I built two newsletters, the Shortform and Broadcast Editors Roundups, leading the projects from brainstorming to design through to launch. Open rates have more than doubled since these were introduced.

+3
2021
Amplifying Stories at University of Greenwich

Wrote stories and PR articles to strengthen the reputation of the Film and TV Programmes.

2021
Resources for Emerging Filmmakers at University of Greenwich

Co-produced four live webinars. Through Q&As, panels, and masterclasses, I helped share the inspiring stories of filmmakers and industry professionals who discussed building new skills, film education, and employment.

2021

Contributed to this interdisciplinary practice‑led research project, capturing BTS shots, designing content, and co-developing a social media campaign. Our efforts increased awareness of Virtual Production, emphasizing the need for standardized workflows to support emerging filmmakers.

+6
2021

Working on a hybrid live event/virtual production alongside filmmakers and theatre experts, I designed a handy programme website for the event's audience, as well as a TEDx sign and other stage backdrops.

+7
2020
Lockdown Cinema at University of Greenwich

Coordinated a series of Covid-safe film screenings and designed posters for each. Each film was followed by a Q&A to discuss the highlights and learnings. I loved working on these events because they mixed education and entertainment to capture students' interest at a time during the pandemic when engagement was at its lowest.

+4
2018
Graphic Design at University of Greenwich

Working at the University between 2018-2021, I designed gallery signage, exhibition posters, internal comms graphics, and digital marketing content.

Work Experience

2022 — Now

So far, I have helped Blueberry quadruple their emails' open rate and double their social media reach. I've also led a soft rebrand and made lots of original designs. I'm glad that my efforts here contribute towards the success of independent editors, designers, and artists.

2020 — 2021

I co-designed a major online hub and covid-safe protocol for Film & TV students that allowed them to keep making films during Covid. I also handled social media and set up some great remote classes with industry experts. It was pretty cool to work with some of the same people who taught me when I studied at Greenwich.

2018 — 2020

I helped curate, install, market, and deliver over 50 exhibitions and events across two years while coordinating the Galleries' digital marketing and assisting the Curator. It was truly one of the best student jobs I could have ever hoped for!

Exhibitions

2020
Feed Your Demons and Meet the Ally

Cross-referencing mythology, pop culture, the supernatural, and digital selfhood, the works in this ZIP-compressed exhibition explore fears, desires, and obstacles artists face in times of crisis and isolation.

Curated by Magda Żołędź (of ONE Project) and I, the exhibition opened with an online event featuring artwork walkthroughs, studio visits, and Q&As.

+4
2020

This online exhibition and accompanying catalogue explore the impact of the internet and contemporary digital culture on the practice of emerging artists and curators. This was my major graduate project while at the University of Greenwich.

The exhibition featured works by Enes Alba, Atom Chen, Dario Bucheli, and Perce Jerrom. The catalogue includes an essay I wrote alongside Q&As with Lisa Barnard, Pita Arreola-Burns, Elliott Burns, Valentina Peri, Ghislaine Boddington, and Walter Corneli.

+13
2019
London

Co-curated with David Waterworth, this exhibition focused on four University of Greenwich graduates—John Joseph Watters, Grace Diggens, Marilia Lezou, and Rhiannon Ashley—working in cross-disciplinary fields that impact our environment and community.

+4
2017 — 2020
Digital Arts, BA Hons at University of Greenwich
London

Features

2023
Everything You See Is In The Past on read.cv
+1
2023
How to Feel More at Home on read.cv
+1
2021

Feature on "How to Feel More at Home" by Banyi Huang on Issue 25 of Show and Tell.

2021

My BTS photographs were featured in News Articles by Story Futures as well as a series of articles on Virtual Production written by Dr. Jodi Nelson Tabor and scholars at the University of Greenwich.

2020

Image “Untitled(2)” published in Issue 04: Self of Harbor Review, an independent online space and publication for poetry and art.

2016

Review of the EP "Feels" that I released as Mountain King in 2016 by the Italian music magazine Rockit.

Side Projects

2023

A streamlined one-page website with page weight and accessibility at the forefront. It features info about my practice, links to my portfolio, and contact information.

+1
2023

Take my breath away. I mean it, now you can. I will email you the time I start inhaling and the time I exhale. Ongoing.

2022

A micro invitation to lose yourself in the unspoken, this expanded poem encourages reflection on the intangible nature of time.

2020

Web-based work incorporating poetry, photographs, and semi-generative audio-visual elements. These fragments reveal themselves as the user interacts - almost by instinct - with the browser's canvas. The work articulates personal sentiments about "home", what (and who) makes one, and how to find meaning living between homes.

[Audio works only on desktop]

+4
2019

Can re-framing social media content as a stream of consciousness tell the story of how it came to be?

Three Years contains all my tweets from April 2016 to February 2019 – more than a thousand entries. I presented the book at the opening of "528" (an exhibition I co-curated) where I performed an uninterrupted 2:30 hrs live reading.

+3
2018
Exhibition Title Bot

A semi-autonomous program that generated and tweeted 500+ exhibition titles for fictional art exhibitions, from the hilarious to the grotesque. It tweeted daily for two years between 2018 - 2021.

+1
2018

Interactive web-work based on Clemens Meyer's homonymous story. The site guides you through extracts from the story, accompanied by corrupted sketches and a forklift spun in space. The whole is soundtracked by a music piece I composed to enrich the experience.

+2
2017

As a concert photographer for the webzine Getintothis, I captured shots of concerts in Liverpool and the Merseyside area. My gig photography portfolio includes artists like Nas, Idles, Real Estates, Tom Grennan, Nathan Fake, and Stealing Sheep.

+6
2015

I made and released music under the aliases of Mountain King and Young Offices. I did so for several years until 2017, when my creative practice expanded into other areas.

Writing

2020

Exhibition catalogue, Q&As, and the opening essay "Playing to the Net".

2020

Exhibition essay for "Feed Your Demons and Meet the Ally".