Robert De Niro is one of the most influential actors of his generation, shaping American cinema and popular culture in classics like “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “The Godfather Part II,” and “Goodfellas.” He’s also one of the few stars to get their own “con,” or fan convention: Held in his hometown of NYC, De Niro Con celebrated the Oscar-winning star with three days of film screenings, immersive experiences, and panel discussions, including several appearances by De Niro himself. 

The centerpiece of the Con was “De Niro Is an Icon,” a career-spanning exhibition at Spring Studios in Tribeca that featured more than 300 items, many curated from De Niro’s personal archive housed at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin. The Con coincided with the closing weekend of the 2024 Tribeca Festival, the annual event co-founded by De Niro with Jane Rosenthal in 2002 to help revitalize downtown Manhattan following the devastation of 9/11. 

Drawing on our own love for all things De Niro, Pentagram developed the name, visual identity, messaging and branding for the Con and designed the exhibition. The team collaborated closely on the project with Rosenthal, who conceived the Con as a tribute to the actor as he turned 80. (Pentagram has worked with Rosenthal on the branding for the Tribeca Festival since 2021.)

The identity tapped into the typography found in film scripts and De Niro's own handwritten script notations. The graphics helped tie together the remarkable variety of artifacts and images on display, including personal photos, costumes, props, script pages, storyboard sketches, set photos, movie posters, and other memorabilia. 

These materials had a starring role in the exhibition design, which packed the gallery walls in a chronological retrospective of eight decades of De Niro’s life, films and roles. Strips of celluloid hung from the ceiling and the graphics incorporated quotes from iconic characters like Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver” and Rupert Pupkin in “The King of Comedy.” The exhibition also featured “De Niro, New York,” a six-screen supercut that weaved together clips of more than 40 of De Niro’s characters interacting with each other.

De Niro Con attendees could choose from three admission levels: the Johnny Boy Day Pass, the Goodfella or, for the truly hardcore, the Godfather. This included access to “The Rupert Pupkin Hall of Immersive Experiences,” where they could step into an exact recreation of Travis Bickle’s dingy bedroom from “Taxi Driver,” try on his Army jacket, and make a video of themselves in a mirror saying “You talkin’ to me?”; shadow box with Jake LaMotta from “Raging Bull”; visit a tattoo parlor to get real prison tattoos like Max Cady’s in “Cape Fear”; and take a polygraph test out of “Meet the Parents.”

Pentagram also developed a witty collection of merch that included playing cards illustrated with De Niro’s most memorable characters, t-shirts reproducing the taxi license he obtained when he was preparing for “Taxi Driver,” temporary prison tattoos inspired by Max Cady, a taxi-cab plush toy, and a baby onesie asking, “You talkin’ to me?” It was the kind of obsessive attention to detail that rewarded devoted fans. Rupert Pupkin would have approved.