“NFL Monday QB,” which premiered in September, legitimizes “Monday morning quarterbacking,” with reviews, breakdowns and analyses of NFL action from retired quarterback legends. A departure from calling games from the booth, the cast of Phil Simms, Rich Gannon, Steve Beuerlein, Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, and Boomer Esiason loosen up and talk football from the comfort of their homes and in studios across the country.
“The Lights” adds a new spin on highlight shows by eliminating a traditional element: no sportscasters, no commentary, just immediate clips and fast, distilled sports information.
Combining footage of today's elite NFL quarterbacks and a dynamic 3D visualization of a touchdown-scoring drive, the show open for “NFL Monday QB” is a nod to the vision of football's de facto field generals, with a sexy vibe that encapsulates every inch of gridiron drama.
Designed by Peter Alfano, Art Director at Trollback + Company, the concept was developed around the crucial skills of a quarterback's game-managing position: anticipating defenses and understanding strategy to orchestrate touchdowns.
The football field's hash marks, with their direct linear form, served as a visual device to show and highlight contemporary footage of a quarterback driving down the field. This 3D-animated device also provides a sense of ball placement from the quarterback's point of view.
Aesthetically, Alfano opted for sunrise-inspired colors to reflect football's outdoor nature; moreover, vintage treatments such as warm de-saturated oranges and greens are an ode to the retired Hall of Famers featured in the show. The biggest challenge was creating the photo-real grass set-ups, which Alfano achieved using the Maya Fur Rig and an open source plug-in called Soup.
“CBS Sports was a great client - very eager to work with us and get our design perspective on things,” says Anna Minkkinen, who served as Creative Director on both projects. “They challenged us to create something that could mesh with the CBS Sports brand, but also had a fresh identity that felt authentic to the show.”
For “The Lights,” Trollbäck + Company Art Director Kelli Miller developed a graphics package that would echo the atypical sports show's visually-driven news platform. The show open abounds with motion graphics featuring streaming data interspersed with memorable live-action sports highlights. An apostrophe denotes key bits within the stream - from the categories of sports information, such as “NBA Playoffs,” to logo swipes and names of various shows.
“Because the show's namesake comes from a shortened version of the word 'highlight,' I tried to incorporate the apostrophe as a metaphor throughout the packaging,” explains Miller. “It's a short way to digest the show and its underlying premise.”
According to Miller, the client directive for the overall package was “to have a clean, accessible and immediate feel to the show's branding,” which aims to provide fans with streamlined sports news. T+Co incorporated and evolved the program's existing interface and visual system including typography, logos and color palette, including cool blues and grays and pops of orange.
“Collaborating with NBC Sports was great,” concludes Miller. “They had a clear vision of what they wanted, so there was no second-guessing. We were able to bring a clean, modern aesthetic to branding their new show.”
Source: Trollbäck + Company