Sustainable Entertainment Alliance

The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance—known colloquially as "the Alliance"—unites the world’s leading film and production studios in a collective effort to advance sustainability initiatives and reduce the entertainment industry’s environmental impact.

As an alliance, it fosters collaboration and shared responsibility among its members, which include Netflix, A24, Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox, NBC Universal, The Walt Disney Company, Village Roadshow, Amazon Studios, and Sony Pictures.

The Alliance’s new logo symbolizes the power of collaboration. Four brackets—evoking a film camera’s focus points—converge at the center, representing the coming together of studios in a unified effort, and radiate outward as ripples to signify widespread impact. This design doubles as both a visual metaphor and a strong, recognizable symbol that can stand alone, establishing the Alliance as a recognized emblem of sustainability in the industry.

The mark expands into a versatile and recognizable brand pattern, with ripples radiating outward in dynamic variations of thickness, length, and overall visual effect to be applied across a wide range of brand assets. Recognizing that the Alliance team isn’t composed of designers, Cotton developed an easy-to-use generator to simplify the process of creating tailored patterns.

The generator allows users to specify image dimensions and customize key design elements, including rectangle width, stroke weight, gap between brackets, and frame growth. Additionally, users can choose from two color gradation options, ensuring they can effortlessly produce patterns that align with the Alliance’s visual identity and desired impact.

The custom generator simplifies the creation of complex, unique graphics that are hard to replicate, with the goal of setting The Alliance apart from others in the industry to position it as a distinct leader in the sustainability space.

The Alliance offers resources and tools to support sustainable efforts within the entertainment industry. To organize and archive these resources, Cotton designed and developed a filter-based website, allowing users to easily navigate content by type. The site enables audiences to create their own shareable custom sustainability toolkit.

The structured logo, strict typographic grid, and dynamic pattern make the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance’s identity instantly recognizable, and allows the brand’s voice to shift between expressive and recessive as needed.