I love looking for inspiration in boards. Too bad this piece isn’t an animation.Usually you get to see a pure idea before is passes through the various levels of approval. Where everyone from the account team to the client’s 5 year old daughter get to decide how to “enhance” your idea and fill in all that “blank” space with more “creativity”. As if creativity is a quantity and simpler design isn’t negative space. Anywho, I’ve had Jon Saunders bookmarked in my boards folder and haven’t checked his site in a long time. Great work. 

Always great work coming from Imaginary Forces. Did they win a Sports Emmy for this?

I came across this in the testimonial section of Wondertouch’s Partical Illusion plugin. Why its none other than a few of our Mafia members answer questions about Partical Illusion. Roman Farias for the Chicago White Sox, Rommel Paraiso for the Chicago Bears and Jeremy Frye for the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks. 

 Digging around for examples of the projects nominated for Sports Emmy’s this year, I came across a case study that Troika did for their Sunday Night Football/Football Night America package. This is hands down the most comprehensive and revealing sports related motion graphics I’ve ever come across. I just wish it was longer.  Great to see some real world examples of Cinema 4D, I wonder what parts were done in C4D. I’m also very curious about the scripting that Troika used to create graphics for every team and player. I know that when I was at the Bulls, I had a few photoshop and after effects scripts that I used. Basically linking variables to cells in database (CSV document) calling up player names, numbers, positions, team logos, colors etc. Does anyone have any experience using C4D’s Xpresso or any database driven graphics techniques?

A Couple weeks ago the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the nominees of this years Sports Emmy Awards. For a full list of the nominees click here. 

Outstanding GRAPHIC DESIGN

• FOX: NFL on FOX (just as I thought, they got nominated) or could this be REZN8′s package?
• NBC: Sunday Night Football / Football Night In America
• ABC: Super Bowl XL ”Drive to Detroit”
• NBC: The XX Olympic Winter Games

Outstanding PRODUCTION DESIGN / ART DIRECTION

• ESPN:  2006 NFL Draft - Tease for Day 1 and Day 2
• ESPN : Monday Night Football – Tease for MIN / WSH & GB / PHI
• ESPN: Monday Night Football - Transformation Open Featuring Ben Stiller
• ABC: NBA Finals - Tease / Open

April 28 - Sports Emmy® AwardsRose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYCBroadway at 60th Street, NY

Wow, the new Cowboys stadium looks amazing. I’ve never seen a video board hung in the middle of a football stadium. 

CHICAGO—Lift has gotten into the spirit of college hoops in a big way. The motion graphics studio, which operates out of Filmworkers Club, has designed and produced a revved up show package for Race to March Madness, a new college basketball series created by Chicago-based Intersport for ABC. (more…)

Nice spot for the NBA featuring Steve Nash. Very simple and clean. Just like the other spots for NBA’s “where amazing happens” campaign. I could see this spot being played during halftime on the big board.

Looks like Blur did it again. After winning an Emmy for their Fox NFL graphic design last year, I’m sure they won’t have a problem re-peating. Although I can’t seem to find any quicktimes or screen grabs of the on-air stuff.

Here are some Superbowl/Graphics related links.

-Every Superbowl Logo Ever!
-Superbowl XXII on iTunes. Watch the highlights for yourself, although I’m not sure how much of the game they have. At 20mins, it seems like you get just about every snap and no replays or sweet graphic packages.
-That well deserved FOXbot ass whopping.
-Is Travis Barker still cool?

In 2006 REZN8 took on the seemingly impossible task of creating graphics for Fox’s NFL broadcasts, in under two months. Here’s what they had to say.

“REZN8 provided much needed design & production muscle for Fox Sports for the NFL 2006 on-air package, as Fox needed almost 1,400 different elements delivered over a span of less than two months. The package consisted of all the interstitials for on-air: Every player on every team was represented, as well as hundreds of other “word” variations. Despite a tight schedule and the fact that all elements were rendered in HD, our artists & production pipeline handled the massive amount of work without a hitch.”   

Great job. I wonder if they handled the 2007 season as well.