top of page
Talking Film Campaign & Building Community Engagement • Vaughan Int'l Film Festival
The “Talking Film” campaign has been a defining symbol of the Vaughan International Film Festival since its inception. As Co-Founder and Marketing Manager of this festival, Mark designed this as a quick, versatile item that anyone could use—and became a recognizable badge of support for the VFF. Over the years, audiences and special guests from around the world proudly adopted it across events, media, and promotional materials.
Hayden Christensen, actor
Festival attendees
Ben Mulroney & Mischa Barton on Your Morning
Social media contest submission
Film class at California State University
Social media contest submission
The campaign later evolved into a social media contest inviting participants to showcase the Talking Film bubble in the most creative and original ways possible. Winners received VIP passes to the festival, generating significant engagement and empowering followers to become enthusiastic festival ambassadors.
Leading a marketing team brainstorm session
Bubble decal on storefront of local sponsor
Promotional piece at all Vaughan McDonald's
Interactive promotional piece at all Vaughan Pizza Nova locations
To strengthen brand consistency, all marketing and promotional materials featured the bubble icon and adhered to the primary yellow and accent grey palette. We applied an interactive design approach to increase engagement and used flyer-takeaway counts as a simple but effective metric to measure audience response.
Leading Brand Identity Integration • Vaughan Public Libraries
Following the recent Vaughan Public Libraries rebrand in 2020, Mark was tasked with developing fresh, innovative ways to integrate the new identity across all marketing materials. This included redesigning the monthly What’s On magazine, producing a logo sting for video ads, and creating special signage and documentation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The brand’s shapes and colours were thoughtfully incorporated—or used as creative inspiration—across every piece.
Conceptualizing Brand Identity & Building Community Engagement • Inkwell Literary Festival
As Founder and Marketing Manager of this community initiative, Mark set out to create a festival that embodies diversity, unity, and genuine creative expression. With a thoughtful blend of vibrant accents and grounded earth tones, the Inkwell brand offers a warm, inclusive welcome—rooted in its core belief that everyone has a story to tell.
Through a targeted six-week Meta campaign, Inkwell’s inaugural marketing strategy attracted nearly 80 short-story submissions from writers across Southern Ontario.
The campaign generated over 23,000 impressions—an exceptional outcome for a first-year festival.
The inaugural festival was a resounding success, drawing large crowds for live author talks, writing workshops, a vibrant multicultural vendor market, and a sold-out short story awards ceremony. It established a new platform for authors, writers, and book lovers, creating a hub for networking and collaboration—a first for the City of Vaughan and a fresh cultural milestone for York Region.
Storyteller Spotlight event on opening night
Vendor market, featuring over 30 vendors
A sold out crowd for the awards ceremony
Conceptualizing Brand Identity & Building Community Engagement • Pancake Festival
Taking a fresh approach to the long-running Maple Pancake Festival, Mark led a full rebrand—introducing a new logo, brand guidelines, and website that modernized the event’s identity and made Maple Lions Club services more accessible to the community.
Promotional sign on major road
This new brand identity delivered strong results, including a significant rise in attendance and registered vendors within the first two years of the rebrand, and a 119% increase in website traffic from 2023 to 2024. Special guests geared toward young families were also introduced to boost awareness and drive attendance.
Large crowds browse the vendor market
Long lineups for pancakes
Seats were filled by hungry guests
MARK J. PAGLIAROLI
bottom of page